From: Michael Haggett (michaelhaggett@onetel.net.uk)
Date: Wed Jan 30 2002 - 14:36:29 EST
George was crazy enough to ask me what I meant about accents.
So this is it.
There have always been two basic positions on accents. The first
is that these represent variations of pitch (or tone, if you
prefer) - the three accents representing a rising, falling or
sustained pitch. The second is that the accents represent where
one should put stress. (Then there are the complicating factors
that one might change to the other over time, and that the
accentuation system we now use differs from those we find used
in earlier manuscripts.)
It is VERY difficult to teach pitch variation, because it relies
heavily on an aural model (i.e. you need to hear what your
teacher is saying). Also one could make the point that it is a
rather specialized application, which indeed might help in the
context of poetry (based on meter rather than rhyme) but is of
more questionable application in prose.
Anyway, whether due to the difficulty of teaching it, or the
fact that some are convinced that it is right in and of itself,
it seems that the majority of those that now learn Koine Greek
are taught that the accents show where to put stress. Most often
they are taught that stress should be put on the accented
syllable irrespective of which accent is used ... something that
arouses the natural questioning instinct of every student I
know!
In answer I have generally heard the explanation that it is
probably wrong to do it this way, but it is much easier to learn
and - more importantly - provides a uniform pronunciation model.
I agree. But does it indeed serve the latter purpose? If we
judge by the great variety of pronunciation patterns that exist,
I would say the answer is almost certainly no. Besides that, I
think any attempt to impose uniformity aims at a false goal ...
and most especially an attempt that is based on the patently
false premise that three different accents were all meant to
indicate the same thing!
It is undoubtedly easier to teach things this way. And, if a
student has no aural model (or an inadequate aural model) to
work from, they have very little choice but to grasp hold of
anything that is available in the text to help them get these
strange-looking words out of their mouth. The accents provide
such a handle, whether that was their intended purpose or not. I
most certainly don't mean to criticise anybody who has come to
rely on using accents to help them read Greek. I just accept it
as yet another pronunciation pattern.
Perhaps I am making a huge generalization (and I apologise to
those to whom this doesn't apply) but it seems that those who
learn New Testament Greek (in theological colleges, seminaries
or by self-teaching) do so far more to get the meaning OUT of
the text than for the pleasure of immersing themselves IN it to
appreciate it on its own terms. It is far more important for
them to learn the exegetical significance of the difference
between an aorist and a present than to stand up in front of a
class and be able to convincingly read a passage of Scripture in
Greek. Of course this isn't wrong, far from it, but it does have
its price. It compares very badly with the teaching of
classical Greek. Because speaking the language is not perceived
to be all that important, we tend to end up with teachers who
themselves find it difficult to speak it fluently, so we lock
ourselves into a circle.
I would like to offer three arguments to challenge the
usefulness of accents as a guide to pronunciation. I will call
these the PISTEUETE principle, the FOBHQHTE principle and the
KERDHQHSONTAI principle.
1. PISTEUETE (standing alone) has one correct accentuation - an
acute on the upsilon. However such verbs can be used in four
different ways with four entirely different meanings. The same
verb can be a statement, a question, an exclamation or a
command. Fairly obviously it will be pronounced in four
different ways to express these meanings.
It doesn't particularly matter to me HOW each one of us does
this, but it is surely obvious that it must be done one way or
another. My point is that the accentuation doesn't change to
reflect these different meanings. To me this is good evidence
that the accentuation system was not primarily intended to be a
guide to pronunciation. We may indeed have come to USE it as
such, but that is something entirely different. Whether you
understand the accents indicate stress or tone, I venture to
suggest you MUST ignore the conventional accentuation at least
twice.
You can hear for yourselves how I distinguish between these four
about a quarter of the way down this page:
http://www.nt-greek.com/ntgreek/f71-impv.html
I would be very interested to hear how others reflect the
difference between these in speech. I think that using a rising
pitch for a question will be fairly extensive (not least because
it can be done without changing the accentuation if one regards
the accent as indicating stress). How we differentiate between
a statement and a command is a far more telling question.
Of course I am well aware of the weasel vs. calm argument. I
fully agree that it is possible to pronounce a word wrongly .
sometimes with hilarious consequences. That one particular
confusion may well be resolved by using accents, but any
confusion between indicatives and imperatives clearly isn't.
Doesn't that indicate that potential confusion is always matter
of pronunciation, but only incidentally a matter of
accentuation?
2. The second principle is illustrated by two occurrences of
FOBHQHTE in Luke 12:4. Unaccented, this word can be either a
subjunctive or an imperative. However it is accented
differently depending on whether it is interpreted as a
subjunctive or an imperative. Why?
I raised this question some time ago on B-Greek, and the answer
I got was that the different accentuation came from different
contractions that lead to the same form, but from different
directions. (I hope that's not misrepresenting anyone's
position, but it is how I assimilated the answers.) This
suggests to me that our current accentuation system was intended
to indicate this sort of thing, and that any effect on
pronunciation was a secondary consequence rather than the
primary intention.
You can hear my differentiation between the these two forms on
the short extract from my subjunctives page at:
http://www.nt-greek.com/ntgreek/f72-subj.html
3. The third principle is illustrated by KERDHQHSONTAI in 1
Peter 3:1, but is common to all long Greek verbs. Such verbs
are made up of quite a number of constituent parts, equivalent
to complete English sentences. I suggest that if you asked a
large enough cross-section of people to read this passage in
English, you would find examples of each of these stress
patterns:
THEY will be won over
they WILL be won over
they will BE won over
they will be WON OVER
I call this variation "rhetorical stress". To me, each one of
these variations is quite legitimate, depending on one's view of
the writer's intention. But I further believe that you can do
exactly the same thing when reading the Greek, even though there
is only one correct position for the accent (on the second eta).
If you believe, in particular, that the accent determines where
you put spoken stress, you will be led into one understanding of
the writer's rhetorical intention at the expense of the others.
You can hear these variations about two-thirds of the way down
this page:
http://www.nt-greek.com/ntgreek/f05-brea.html
That's it folks! I await your comments. Please be calming rather
than weasel-like.
Michael Haggett
London
www.ntgreek.com
NOTE: the pages I have just uploaded are only on the nt-greek
mirror site. If you need to download the Greek font or
RealPlayer, instructions are on the Welcome Page of the course
at:
http://www.nt-greek.com/ntgreek/index.html
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