4.25 Accentuation of Second Declension Nouns

There are extensive notes on accentuation in the Second Declension Noun Paradigm page.

The most important principles to keep in mind are the following:

Nouns that take antepenultimate stress in the nominative form are subject to shifting stress. Whenever the ending goes long, the stress cannot remain on the antepenultimate syllable and it moves to the penultimate syllable. Here are some examples you have learned of this in both the first and second declensions:

1st declension genitive singular, dative singular, dative plural, accusative plural [note that the genitive plural ending is always stressed for the first declension feminine nouns]

	Singular	Plural
Nominative	θάλασσα	θάλασσαι
Genitive	θαλάσσης	θαλασσῶν
Dative	θαλάσσῃ	θαλάσσαις
Accusative	θάλασσαν	θαλάσσας

2nd declension genitive singular, dative singular, genitive plural, dative plural, accusative plural

	Singular	Plural
Nominative	κύριος	κύριοι
Genitive	κυρίου	κυρίων
Dative	κυρίῳ	κυρίοις
Accusative	κύριον	κυρίους
Vocative	κύριε	(same as nominative)

There are also special rules governing the alternation of the circumflex and the acute accent, but since this does not affect your pronunciation, you are not responsible for those rules. You can just use an acute accent to indicate to yourself where the word stress falls. You are not expected to know where to supply a circumflex accent.