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There should be another accent on the second omicron: το άλογό μου because μου is clitic and άλογο is stressed on the third last syllable.
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There can only be one tonic accent per word. It is true that the last sillable is also stressed but that is a secondary stress so it is not signed
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I am a Greek native speaker. "το άλογό μου" is the only correct way orthographically. In terms of phonology, the accent on omicron here is becoming the primary accent, whilst the accent on alpha is becoming secondary due to the enclitic μου: /to ˌaloˈɣo‿mu/
(see also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_Greek_grammar#Accent)
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Sorry I got cocky here, my bad. The TTS puts the primary stress on the α though. Would you say that it is a mispronunciation or that is one of the correct pronunciations? (seriously, I'm asking) As you say the stress in pronunciation is shifting among natives. Would άλογο μου be cosidered a conservative (or even archaic) spelling?
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No problem. :)
Actually, this kind of "shifting-primary-stress-if-a-word-that's-stressed-on-the-third-last-syllable-is-followed-by-an-enclitic" is not a recent 'development' of Modern Greek, but already existed in ancient Greek dialects like Attic as well. For example, the Attic "ἄνθρωπος" (= man/human, same as in Modern Gr.) gets another stress on the last syllable in the phrase "ἄνθρωπός τις" (τις being an enclitic indefinite pronoun, so the phrase translates to "some/any human").
As a rule of thumb, a word, together with an enclitic which succeeds it, can be considered as one phonological 'word entity':
So "άλογό μου" is pronounced as if it were /αλογόμου/.
"άλογο μου" cannot be correct because this would mean stressing the 'word entity' /άλογομου/ on the fourth last syllable, something that can never occur in Greek. (I hope you can follow my explanation. ^^)
As for the TTS, I guess it pronounces it the wrong way because it's written the wrong way here. If you try the Google Translate TTS, it will say it correctly (i.e. pronouncing it with a primary stress on the second omicron):
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PS:
From some of your other posts I have concluded that you are Italian.
I think such cases show an interesting difference between the ways Greek and Italian handle their enclitics. While in Italian it is okay for a combination of a word and one/multiple enclitics to be stressed on the fourth last syllable
(e.g. "porta + me + lo" = "portamelo" /ˈportamelo/)
in Greek the primary stress in cases like this would switch to the second last syllable:
(e.g. "φέρε + μου + το" = "φέρε μού το" /ˌfereˈmuto/)
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Indeed! I thought of writing it myself but this is the Greek course afterall :) anyway, since we are at it: you just wrote the phonetic differences, I'll write here the orthografic ones. First of all, no multiple graphic accents on a single word – as I wrongfully thought it applied to Greek too – and second, the clitics are pronounced AND written together. The last difference is a most fortunate one for a foreign learner: I see that Greek almost always requires a graphic accent, Italian seldom does! This way I – Greek learner – will know where the stess is – assuming the text is spelled correctly ;) – whereas with the italian rules one could easely mispronounce your example as /porta'melo/ when learning Italian
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Then how does one say: "This horse is mine"?
"Αυτό το άλογο είναι δικό μου"?
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What is the difference between το άλογο and ο ίππος? the latter seems to be more ancient (cf. English and international words like hippology, hippodrome, hippogriff) but I might be mistaken.
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Does "mou" change in conformity with cases or it's a noun that changes, or an article? Or everything?
Μου is the weak genitive form of the first person singular pronoun εγώ and is used to indicate possession. It does not change under any circumstance, if what you want to express is possession.
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So only articles and nouns change in declensions of possessive constructions?
Yes for example:
Ο άντρας μου=my husband. (Nominative)
Του άντρα μου=my husband's.
Τον άντρα μου=my husband (Accusative)
- άντρα μου= (vocative) my husband
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Is there a version shorter than 9 syllables, or is Greek usually more long-winded than English? ("It's my horse" is 3.)
Greek is always more long-winded that English, and that's why it is spoken fast.
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I put "the horse is mine". Why is that not quite correct? Please and thanks!
It doesn't express the same idea. In the Duo sentence, it refers to "this horse" in other words a specific one. It is a slight difference but in a teaching course there needs to be accuracy.
