ACCENT

(Lat. ad, to, and cano, I sing.) In ordinary language, the greater or le stre laid in pronouncing on each syllable of a word is termed the accent of that syllable. But the accent of a Greek syllable is a species of tone, respecting which very contradictory notions prevail among modern commentators, and of which it IS indeed difficult to form any accurate conception. The history of the emplo3nntient of accentual marks in writing the Greek language, is extremely obscure. They are found in manuscripts of considerable antiquity. In our pronunciation of Greek, they are wholly neglected, quantity being our only guide in the stre which we lay on the syllable of each word. But the modern Greeks pronounce their language, in general, laying the stre on the accented syllables, and neglecting the quantity. The mark of the acute accent is '; of the grave "^; of the circumflex, which is a compound of the other two, a, or ~. But every syllable which has no accentual mark is said to have the grave accent; the grave being only marked on final syllables of words which have no acute accent on any iyllable. These three accentual marks are also employed [s. 21]