Syllables

As you saw in the previous practice materials, it can really help in sounding out Greek words to know how many syllables the word has!

As a general rule of thumb, for every vowel or diphthong, there is a syllable. So if you count up the number of diphthongs and vowels in a word that will tell you how many syllables the word has.

Greek words can have just one syllable, or they can be very very long (as many as five syllables, or even more). It all depends on the number of vowels and diphthongs in the word.

Here are some of the names you have practiced with, organized into categories based on the number of syllables they have. Make sure you understand this chart listing the number of syllables in each word before you go on to the next chart. Sound out each name and make sure you understand how many syllables it has.

In general, every word in Greek has one stressed syllable, and there are three different places where that stress can be placed. Each of these stressed syllables has a name:

• ultimate syllable: the stress is on the last syllable of the word
• penultimate syllable: the stress is on the next-to-last syllable of the word
• antepenultimate syllable: the stress is on the next-to-next-to-last syllable of the word

It is very important to be aware of the syllables of each Greek word. Here is a chart that organizes some of the names you have learned by number of syllables and by the position of the stressed syllable.

Practice reading these lists out loud, putting a strong emphsis on the stressed syllable. What you are studying here is prosody, or the rhythmic patterns of the Greek. There are many complex patterns in Greek word stress, and the more you can familiarize yourself with the variety of these patterns, the better!

• Rows. Practice reading the chart row by row to get a sense of what ultimate (and penultimate and antepenultimate) syllable word stress sounds like for words of different length.
• Columns. Practice reading the chart column by column so that you can hear how words with the same number of syllables can have very different word stress patterns!

After you have practiced reading these words out loud, you can try filling in the Syllable Practice Test, making sure you understand how to count the number of syllables and that you know the names of the stressed syllable in each word.