On 2007-10-08 20:38, Andrew Jarrette wrote:
> My question is, why does the Greek word have the circumflex accent?
The type of accent on a penultimate syllable (with a long vowel or
diphthong) in Greek is predictable. In other words, the circumflex and
the acute don't contrast in this position (as they do in final syllables
and monosyllabic words). The penult accent is acute (paroxytone) if the
nucleus of the final syllable is long, and it's circumflex
(properispomenon) otherwise (one minor complication is that final -oi,
-ai don't count as long). So: doûlos and doûloi but doúlou.
Piotr