# Γιατί 'Δήμαρχος', 'Νομάρχης' κι όχι π.χ. 'Δημάρχης', ''Νόμαρχος'



## caledonianstill

*Γιατί 'Δήμαρχος', 'Νομάρχης' κι όχι π.χ. 'Δημάρχης', 'Νόμαρχος';*


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## balgior

Hello caledonianstill! 

This is a good question! Actually, it is so good that I don't believe there is an answer to it.  I think you should accept it "as is"! The only think that I can observe is that the words "δήμαρχος" and "νομάρχης" keep the stress of the words "δήμος" and "νομός", respectively, at its original place! But I'm not sure this has anything to do with your question.

Edit #1: However, for some reason, "δήμαρχης" and "νομάρχος" would sound far more weird than "δημάρχης" and "νόμαρχος" would... 

Edit #2: As a matter of fact, after 3.5 minutes of thinking rolleyes, I found out that it depends on the place of the stress whether it is -άρχης or (stress)-αρχος: πλοί-αρχος, ταξί-αρχος,  τραπεζ-άρχης, ομαδ-άρχης...

Note to Greek fellows: βοηθήστε βρε, πώς λέγεται η λήγουσα, η παραλήγουσα και η προπαραλήγουσα;


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## caledonianstill

antepenultimate/penultimate/ultimate syllable


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## Fred_C

Hi, 
The answer lies in ancient greek,
H was a long vowel, and a long vowel in the end of a greek word used to count for two syllables, and prevented the word to be proparoxytonic.
O on the other hand is a short vowel.

Note : This explanation does not work for words like άσκηση, but it does if you consider its ancient form άσκησις, where iota is a short vowel.


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## caledonianstill

A long vowel in the end of a greek word used to count for two syllables? Can you give me a reference for that?


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## Kevman

Fred means it counts as two syllables as far as accent position is concerned.

As you may know, the accent in Greek can only fall on one of the last three syllables of a word.  In Ancient Greek, if the vowel of the final syllable is long the accent cannot fall on the antepenult.  This is explained by the linguistic concept of the _*mora*_: the basic unit of syllable 'weight.'  A short vowel 'weighs' one mora, while a long vowel 'weighs' 2 morae.  So, to phrase it more precisely, the accent may not fall more than three _morae_ from the end of the word***.  If an unstressed final syllable weighs 2 morae then the stress can only fall on the penult.  

The same rule actually still holds true in Modern Greek, but vowels are no longer considered long or short so each syllable only weighs one mora.  Therefore, to say a Modern Greek word may only be accented on one of the last three syllables means exactly the same as to say it may only be accented on one of the last three morae.

Any decent text or website about Ancient Greek will probably start off by listing the complicated accentuation rules, but you will also find a pretty good, in-depth discussion about the theory behind them here.

_________
***There is an apparent exception to this rule when there is a long vowel in the penult, e.g.: the accent for ἄνθρωπος is technically on the 4th mora from the end, but for the most part the rule holds up pretty well, and it even explains accent shifts due to inflections and declensions.


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## modus.irrealis

Kevman said:


> The same rule actually still holds true in Modern Greek, but vowels are no longer considered long or short so each syllable only weighs one mora.  Therefore, to say a Modern Greek word may only be accented on one of the last three syllables means exactly the same as to say it may only be accented on one of the last three morae.


That's an interesting way to look at things and makes sense in a lot of ways.

I wonder if you've ever considered the word γάιδαρος in this context, since this was a problem case for various analyses of Greek phonology that I've seen. It seems that either you have to allow the fourth-to-last-syllable to be accented in this word (and basically in this word alone, maybe along with words like τέλειωσα) or you have to allow the diphthong [ai] to be phonemic in Greek (again basically in this word alone).



> ***There is an apparent exception to this rule when there is a long vowel in the penult, e.g.: the accent for ἄνθρωπος is technically on the 4th mora from the end, but for the most part the rule holds up pretty well, and it even explains accent shifts due to inflections and declensions.


I have the complete opposite reaction to this exception and think that it shows that the mora-based analysis is just as adhoc as any other that tries to be deep in some sense, especially since ω acts like 1-mora in ἄνθρωπος but has to have 2 to explain things like σῶος vs. σώου. Another problem is with (most) final -οι and -αι, which at the same time have to be two mora for syllable length but one mora for the accent. And then examples like πόλεως (which I know have clear historical explanations) still make me think that the accent rule shouldn't really be presented as a rule.


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## Kevman

modus.irrealis said:


> I wonder if you've ever considered the word γάιδαρος in this context, since this was a problem case for various analyses of Greek phonology that I've seen. It seems that either you have to allow the fourth-to-last-syllable to be accented in this word (and basically in this word alone, maybe along with words like τέλειωσα) or you have to allow the diphthong [ai] to be phonemic in Greek (again basically in this word alone).


As long as we're freely adapting theories, I think we might have to formulate a special rule for the _ sound when it takes the form of a non-syllabic glide.  If we refer back to Mr. Foundalis' pages again, he actually designates this glide leading into a vowel as nothing more than the palatalization of the preceding consonant. In that respect the orthographic ι (or ει, in the case of τέλειωσα) is merely an indicator that the preceding consonant is palatalized, rather than a representation of a sound in its own right.  Can we consider the diphthong /ai/ to be a sort of palatalized α?_


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## Fred_C

Hi,
As far as I can remember, the rule is much simpler than to come up with the mora theory.
Anthrwpos is not an exception, is is part of the rule, because as I said, only the last syllable counts for two syllables (let us leave the mora concept to poetry) when it is long, and it is perfectly normal for a long vowel to count as one syllable if it is not in the end of the word.
This rule works perfectly well for classical ancient greek, where the only exceptions involve cases of quantity metathesis.
In modern greek, there are many more exceptions. (compound nouns of the -os declension, -H feminine nouns that used to be -is words, etc...)


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## caledonianstill

The last syllable counts for two syllables?? No one in Greece teaches Ancient Greek using such strange kind of rules.


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## Fred_C

caledonianstill said:


> The last syllable counts for two syllables?? No one in Greece teaches Ancient Greek using such strange kind of rules.


 That is no wonder.
I guess the Greek do not need strict rules to know how to accentuate Greek words, because they already know perfectly well how to accentuate modern demotic greek words, and the burden of learning just the differences with ancient Greek words is not very heavy.

Foreigners need rules, mind you.


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## modus.irrealis

Kevman said:


> As long as we're freely adapting theories, I think we might have to formulate a special rule for the _ sound when it takes the form of a non-syllabic glide.  If we refer back to Mr. Foundalis' pages again, he actually designates this glide leading into a vowel as nothing more than the palatalization of the preceding consonant. In that respect the orthographic ι (or ει, in the case of τέλειωσα) is merely an indicator that the preceding consonant is palatalized, rather than a representation of a sound in its own right.  Can we consider the diphthong /ai/ to be a sort of palatalized α?_


_
I think that's basically one of the solutions I saw -- what's strange, then, is that this palatalized α occurs only in a small number of words, since there's no reason to not see words like πάει, φάει, αγαπάει and so on as simply having /a/ + /i/, even though they're often pronounced as a diphthong. γάιδουρος just seems to not want to fit in nicely with other words.



Fred_C said:



			Hi,
As far as I can remember, the rule is much simpler than to come up with the mora theory.
Anthrwpos is not an exception, is is part of the rule, because as I said, only the last syllable counts for two syllables (let us leave the mora concept to poetry) when it is long, and it is perfectly normal for a long vowel to count as one syllable if it is not in the end of the word.
This rule works perfectly well for classical ancient greek, where the only exceptions involve cases of quantity metathesis.
		
Click to expand...

And words like πόλεων (probably due to analogy) and of course the major exception that most final -αι and -οι don't count as long for the accent. But there are advantages to the mora concept: it unifies the treatment of cases like ἀνθρώπου and μοίρας, it explains the resulting accent for contracted vowels, and a few other things. Of course, not everyone will agree that these are important advantages, or even that they are advantages at all. 




			In modern greek, there are many more exceptions. (compound nouns of the -os declension, -H feminine nouns that used to be -is words, etc...)
		
Click to expand...

I don't think you can really call these exceptions by your rule since there are no long vowels in Modern Greek, hence the rule doesn't apply. The accent system is just different in too many ways (both in reality, you have stress vs. pitch accent, loss of vowel length, and in writing, where the circumflex and grave accent are no longer used). They're just different systems that need to be treated separately._


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## ireney

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