ON THE IMPORTANCE OF ACCENT IN TEACHING MODERN GREEK AS A FOREIGN LANGUAGE

Abstract

According to the rules of the accentuation of Modern Greek, every word which consists of two and more syllables must be written with the acute accent above the syllable which carries the stress. Unlike the complicated system of accentuation in Ancient Greek, the system of accentuation of Modern Greek is much simpler, but still somewhat complicated. The writing of the Greek stress is acquired automatically with words and their spelling, meaning that accent is part of the word as is it graphological, acoustic and morphological segment. The main feature of Greek stress is its dynamicity within three possible positions in words. All the rules of stress are directly acquired through morhpological forms of words. When teaching Greek as a foreign language the teacher should help his students to acquire the knowledge of the position of stress as easily as possible.