Words with Suffix ‐το‐

AbstractThis chapter discusses the formation of words with -to-, comparative evidence for their accentuation, and descriptive accounts of their accentuation in Greek. An analysis of simplex words formed historically with -to- shows that the adjectives are all accented on the final syllable. Two groups of nouns are consistently recessive: those formed on an o-grade root (type phórtos ‘load’), and two with a laryngeal-final root in CVRV form (kámatos ‘toil’; thánatos ‘death’). The other nouns are predominantly accented on the final syllable, but some are recessive; those with -eto- show the same pattern. A prima facie correlation between accentuation and first attestation in or after Homer does not demonstrate a chronological shift, but word frequency and accentuation are correlated in the same non-linear fashion as for words with -ro-.