From: Paul F. Evans (evans@mail.gld.com)
Date: Mon Feb 10 1997 - 16:06:03 EST
<html><html><head></head><BODY bgcolor="#FFFFFF"><p><font size=2 color="#000000" face="Arial">Carl,<br><br>I would like to demonstrate my usual knack for the "basic" and elementary question. In the recent discussion of accents, it has been observed, and I am well aware of the fact, that accents were not original to the text (NT in particular). Where do they come from, and by what system were they put into place? And if they do, in some instances, make a material difference to meaning, surely where the meaning is ambiguous in the first place, or a textual variant disputed, accents cannot be the determiners?<br> <br>Paul F. Evans<br>Pastor<br>Thunder Swamp Pentecostal Holiness Church<br>Mount Olive, NC<br><br>"Endeavouring to make use of NT Greek in a real life ministry!" <br><br>----------<br>From: Carl W. Conrad <<font color="#0000FF"><u>cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu</u><font color="#000000">><br>To: Andrew Kulikovsky <<font color="#0000FF"><u>anku@celsiustech
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.com.au</u><font color="#000000">><br>Cc: '<font color="#0000FF"><u>b-greek@virginia.edu</u><font color="#000000">'<br>Subject: Re: accents<br>Date: Monday, February 10, 1997 7:13 AM<br><br>At 11:52 PM -0600 2/9/97, Andrew Kulikovsky wrote:<br>>Fellow Greeks,<br>><br>>Do Greek accents have any semantic meaning or modify the meaning of<br>>Greek words in any way?<br>><br>>I remember someone telling me that accents on the last letter of certain<br>>pronouns indicate interrogation (or something like that anyway). Is this<br>>correct?<br><br>I don't know whether a linguist would be inclined to say that accents have<br>semantic meanings by themselves, but I think it would have to be said that<br>they are markers often differentiating otherwise identical morphemes, as in<br>the instance of the indefinite TIS (unaccented enclitic) and interrogative<br>TI/S (accented and tending toward the early part of a clause if not even<br>the initial position). Similarly in personal pronouns, the form
s EMOI\ and<br>SOI\ are marked and emphatic (and tend to precede the verb governing them)<br>as opposed to the unaccented enclitic forms MOI and SOI. E.g.:<br><br>	EIPE/ MOI "Tell me, ... "<br>	EMOI\ EIPE/ "Tell ME (not someone else), ... "<br><br>	ANH/R TIS "some fellow," "a certain fellow"<br>	TI/S ANH/R? "what fellow?"<br><br>At any rate there are some significant differences between words otherwise<br>alike in apparent "spelling"--but you must realize that spelling usually is<br>inexact. The accent indicates an essential aspect of the word's<br>pronunciation/sounding that makes it a different word from that pronounced<br>without it or with an accent of a different kind or on a different syllable.<br><br><br>Carl W. Conrad<br>Department of Classics, Washington University<br>One Brookings Drive, St. Louis, MO, USA 63130<br>(314) 935-4018<br><font color="#0000FF"><u>cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu</u><font color="#00
0000"> OR <font color="#0000FF"><u>cwc@oui.com</u><font color="#000000"><br>WWW: <font color="#0000FF"><u>http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~cwconrad/><font color="#000000"><br><br><br>----------<br><br></p>
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