TOPICS

Accent and Accent-Marking in Ancient Greek

Contonation and Mora

The Last 3 Syllables and the Accents
•acute
•circumflex
•grave
•ultima
•penult
•antepenult
•more examples

Proclitics

Enclitics

Multiple Clitics

Traditional Terminology

Persistent Accentuation
• a- and o-declension
• consonant declension

Recessive Accentuation

Enclitics Defined	Previous | Next

Certain words (mostly monosyllabic, a few disyllabic) normally lack their own accent and attach themselves in pronunciation to the preceding word to form a single word unit. These words are called enclitics because they are considered to “lean upon” the preceding word for their accent.

In Attic the common enclitics are the indefinite pronoun, indefinite adjectives and indefinite adverbs, most present indicative forms of the irregular verbs εἰμί (“to be”) and φημί (“to say”), certain particles, and certain unstressed forms of the personal pronouns.

Enclitics sometimes affect the accent of the preceding word, as is illustrated on the following screens.

(Enclitics are underlined in the following examples.)

νόμος τις – “some law, a certain law”

τοῦ ποιητοῦ ἐστι. – “It belongs to the poet. [It is of the poet.]”

δίκαι τε καὶ νόμοι – “both court cases and laws”