[Erin T]

If haven't got any questions, maybe you understand accents. If so, can you enlighten me as to how you can tell when a diphthong is long or short? I know that 'ai' can sound like 'e' as in pet, or like 'ai' as in aisle. But if if the assignment is to place the accent mark, how would I know whether it was the short 'e' sound or the long 'i' sound, so that I could run it through the rules for accenting?

Toodle pip
Erin

[freewoman]

erin, i don't think it has anything to do with the way 'ai' sounds, whether 'e' as in pet or 'ai' as in aisle. from what i can gather, it's simply a matter of rules. 'ai' is considered long, unless it is at the end of a word, not followed by any other letter, and then it is short. does that help, or are you only more confused?

freewoman

[K Johnson]

Erin,

Freewoman is correct - all diphthongs (no matter what they sound like when pronounced) are long, except when they are at the end of the word all by their lonesomes. How the diphthong, or any vowel, is pronounced has no effect on whether it is considered long or short (as in English). Again, as Freewoman said, you just have to follow the rules in order to know which vowels and diphthongs are long and which are short.

Don't know if that was helpful or not,
-uberschwenglich

[mikenoel]

If I understand correctly you are saying that all diphthongs are long unless they are at the very end of the word in which case they are short.

This confuses me with the word

a=nqrwvpou

Since it ends in ou I would have thought it was short. In which case the accent could have stayed on the a.

What am I missing?

_M_

[Klaas]

A diphthong is a combination of two vowels of which the latter is either iota or u-psilón.
The first vowel can either be a long single [ᾱ, η, ω] vowel or a short one [ᾰ, ε, ο, ῠ].
Now, when a diphthong is formed by means of the iota as the second part, it’s written after the first vowel, if this is a short one [ᾰι, ει, οι], but written underneath it when the first vowel is originally long [ᾳ,ῃ,ῳ].
So, as a result we have in the nominative plural [χῶραι], but in the dative singular [χώρᾳ]. The acute accent on the latter word [dat.sg.] indicates that the diphthong in the last syllable is long, whereas it’s short(er) in the former [nom.pl.].

Another comparison: there must somehow be a difference in length if you compare δῆλοι [adj. nom. pl.] with βαίνοι [verb. 3rd ps. sg. optat. act. pres. st.].
_________________
כח גַּם אֱוִיל מַחֲרִישׁ, חָכָם יֵחָשֵׁב
(משלי פרק יז)

[mikenoel]

Now I understand at least a little bit more. First, I was not noticing the distinction between "long/short vowel" and "long/short syllable". A syllable with a long vowel (h, w) or a syllable with a diphthong is considered long. The exception is if the last two letters of the word are ai or oi, in which case they are short.

I see that in Machen now (section 10 in the edition I have).

So now I'm not confused about how ai is short but ou is long.

_M_

[Klaas]