Lesson 8 | Third Noun Pattern
[2] Vowel Mergers
Earlier in this course, you learned about vowel combos. Vowel combos are when two vowels work together to form one sound like αυ or ει. However, something else can happen with vowels. With vowel combos, the two vowels remain separate but work together to create a new sound. Other times, though, the two vowels actually merge into something new. We will call these vowel mergers.
For example, when α merges with ο, we get ω. When ε joins with ο, we get ου. When ω merges with another vowel, we just get ω. You do not need to know what each vowel merger produces, but you do need to know that this happens. Knowing about vowel mergers will be particularly important once we start talking about participles in Greek 2 and verbs in Greek 3. We see an example of a vowel merger in Matthew 9:18:
Ταῦτα αὐτοῦ λαλοῦντος αὐτοῖς, While he was still saying these things to them,
λαλοῦντος is the verb λαλεω in its present, active, participle, genitive, masculine, singular form. (We will start learning about participles in Greek 2. So, do not worry too much about understanding these terms right now). When the verb’s stem λαλε joins with the participle ending οντος, we get λαλοῦντος. Do you see the circumflex accent over the vowel merger? Circumflex accents often help us notice that two vowels have merged together.
ε + ο ⇒ οῦ
Most Common Vowel Mergers
ε + ο / ο + ε / ο + ο ⇒ οῦ
ε + ε ⇒ εῖ
ε + α ⇒ η
α + ε ⇒ ᾶ
α + ο ⇒ ῶ
_ + ω ⇒ ῶ
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Again, you do not need to know everything about vowel mergers. You just need to know that they happen.