Latin long vowels

[CGreathouse]

Back when I took introductory Latin I used texts (as is standard, I think) that marked vowel length with macros. Of course this was not done in ancient times.* For some reason I seem to remember that this was actually mostly regular, that it could be determined in a good majority of cases, leaving only a small fraction of words where it had to be memorized. Is this right, or am I misremembering? Any good references for these, or -- if simple enough -- would anyone care to list them here?

* Although I did come across this passage recently: "The ancient Romans sometimes marked a vowel long by writing it extra large." Has anyone heard of this? Better, does anyone have pictures of this from actual Latin writings?

[zompist]

1. No, vowel length wasn't predictable.

2. There were various expedients tried sporadically in classical times, including writing letters double, increasing letter size, and diacritics.

[Zhen Lin]

What I don't understand is why some texts use breves and macrons simultaneously. It gives the impression that there's more than a dichotomy between long and short?

[Nesescosac]

2. There were various expedients tried sporadically in classical times, including writing letters double, increasing letter size, and diacritics.

Would this be an example?

[CGreathouse]

What I don't understand is why some texts use breves and macrons simultaneously. It gives the impression that there's more than a dichotomy between long and short?

I haven't seen that before, that does sound odd. I'm not aware of any other distinction that this might make -- heavy/light can be distinguished without marking, so I doubt that's it.

2. There were various expedients tried sporadically in classical times, including writing letters double, increasing letter size, and diacritics.

Would this be an example?

That's the only classical Latin diacritic I've seen (though I think it goes by another name when used on a vowel).

[Soap]

Do they have marks on *every* vowel? They might just be doing it to distinguish between "long", "short", and "we don't know because this word is rare and didnt survive into Romance".

[Zhen Lin]

I don't remember. It might have been mostly on the i and u.

[Basilius]

Of course this was not done in ancient times.*

I suspect you'd be interested in reading something on apices.

There were many other ways to mark vowel length found in epigraphics, but this one was most consequential (in principle, not in actual use, but that's another matter).

[Basilius]

I don't remember. It might have been mostly on the i and u.

This may mean that macron and breve were used solely to give a modern reader the cue for correct placement of stress. Then, the diacritics would be used only on penults; unstressed penults mostly have short i and u, and this could be why you remembered tons of i-breve and u-breve.

I've seen such editions. Stroke me as useless for someone interested in learning about the actual language of classical times.

[Niedokonany]

I've seen such editions. Stroke me as useless for someone interested in learning about the actual language of classical times.

My old Latin textbook, I also remember quite a few ĕ's from it. But in fact, I daresay lots of people who for some reason take Latin courses aren't interested in learning about the actual classical language (or even that much about the language in general). E.g. various medical/pharmaceutical faculty students here. In Poland there's no strong tradition of distinguishing the vowel length, so all that is needed to know is where to place the stress - unless you're going to be a classical philologist or something.

[Soap]

Yeah, Ive never understood why they teach the whole language to medical students when all they really need is anatomy and chemical names and maybe a few things like bis in die. I guess it's just a matter of bipurposing the already existing Latin teachers rather than creating a new class that excludes the grammar and syntax.

[Jetboy]

A slightly related question to the OP's; I read in From Latin to Romance in Sound Charts that Classical Latin had a pitch accent similar to that of Classical Greek. I've never heard anything about this anywhere else; besides those rich people who probably adopted this from Greek in order to sound more educated, is this actually at all correct, or just somewhat outdated idea?

[Dewrad]

A slightly related question to the OP's; I read in From Latin to Romance in Sound Charts that Classical Latin had a pitch accent similar to that of Classical Greek. I've never heard anything about this anywhere else; besides those rich people who probably adopted this from Greek in order to sound more educated, is this actually at all correct, or just somewhat outdated idea?

It's bollocks. It's possible that "speakers" of Classical Latin interpreted Latin's stress accent as one of pitch under influence from Greek, but that's about it. (That is, they'd put a high pitch rather than a dynamic accent on the /i:/ of Latī́nus)

[vec]

The reason for writing a breve is usually to indicate beyond doubt that this vowel, which according to one of the various length guidelines "vocalis ante vocalem brevis" and that kind of stuff should be long, but it isn't. In other words, the breve is manly used to mark exceptions to the rules.

[Basilius]

A slightly related question to the OP's; I read in From Latin to Romance in Sound Charts that Classical Latin had a pitch accent similar to that of Classical Greek. I've never heard anything about this anywhere else; besides those rich people who probably adopted this from Greek in order to sound more educated, is this actually at all correct, or just somewhat outdated idea?

It's bollocks. It's possible that "speakers" of Classical Latin interpreted Latin's stress accent as one of pitch under influence from Greek, but that's about it. (That is, they'd put a high pitch rather than a dynamic accent on the /i:/ of Latī́nus)

"A dynamic accent", however, is a rather obscure notion itself. If what is meant is in fact some type of cumulative accent, then one should check its probable components, like:

(1) Pitch contour. The only thing we know for certain to have been noticed by native grammarians (and described in a suspiciously detailed manner by them).

(2) Vowel length. Probably not involved, since it was contrastive and not conditioned by the accent in any way.

(3) Vowel reduction in unaccented syllables. Certainly was there at some point, but was conditioned by something like initial intensity rather than the accent.

(4) Intensity contour. See above on initial intensity.

{(5) what else?}

Without a (5), it still appears to be a pitch accent. I'm sorry :)

[CGreathouse]

Of course this was not done in ancient times.*

I suspect you'd be interested in reading something on apices.

Yes, I mentioned those above. Unlike macrons, those were used in classical inscriptions and even occasionally writing.

[hwhatting]

Yeah, Ive never understood why they teach the whole language to medical students when all they really need is anatomy and chemical names and maybe a few things like bis in die. I guess it's just a matter of bipurposing the already existing Latin teachers rather than creating a new class that excludes the grammar and syntax.

I once (in the 90s) had a glance into the materials they used to teach Latin to medical students at my university (Bochum). It's mostly vocabulary and very rudimentary grammar. After such a course, you'll be able to understand Latin-derived medical terms, but you wouldn't be able to read even comparably simple texts like the Bellum Gallicum.

[Pthagnar]

Yeah, Ive never understood why they teach the whole language to medical students when all they really need is anatomy and chemical names and maybe a few things like bis in die

because liberal education + doctors are gentlemen

[Nortaneous]

(3) Vowel reduction in unaccented syllables. Certainly was there at some point, but was conditioned by something like initial intensity rather than the accent.

(4) Intensity contour. See above on initial intensity.

Wait, what? So stress was initial? Does this mean a pitch-accented vowel could be unstressed?

[hwhatting]

(3) Vowel reduction in unaccented syllables. Certainly was there at some point, but was conditioned by something like initial intensity rather than the accent.

(4) Intensity contour. See above on initial intensity.

Wait, what? So stress was initial? Does this mean a pitch-accented vowel could be unstressed?

I don't follow here - the assumption I know is that the period of intial stress (which resulted in the reduction and /or change of quality of vowels) came before the classically attested penultimate/antepenultimate accent. Or are we talking about something else here?

[Basilius]

Wow! *Two* people noticed that I said something not in the manual :)

I don't follow here - the assumption I know is that the period of intial stress (which resulted in the reduction and /or change of quality of vowels) came before the classically attested penultimate/antepenultimate accent. Or are we talking about something else here?

You're right, this is the current consensus, more-less. I've never been happy with this, however, since it makes reference to "stress" while implying sheer ignorance on the nature of "stress" (and related phenomena, cross-linguistically) on the reader's side.

In my comment I was making reference to the following general info:

(a) Cumulative accent (a better term than "stress") can involve different components in different languages (typically including all or some of those mentioned in my analysis).

(b) A number of languages have initial intensity combined with (contrastive and/or not-necessarily-initial) pitch accent or even cumulative accent (the latter happens to be the case in my L1).

And for Classical Latin, I was referring to the following observations:

(1) Native grammarians offer quite detailed descriptions of pitch accent without mentioning anything else.

(2a) At some point, there certainly was a vowel reduction in (roughly) non-initial syllables.

(2b) {A point requiring much elaboration} The idea that the factor causing such reduction had ceased to work by Classical times is based mainly on using the inadequate notion of "stress" (deemed incompatible with the "new position of accent" - which is plain wrong, typologically) and does not seem to be supported by liguistic data (thus, there is a number of words where an apparently similar reduction happened *after* the Classical times: It. allegro ~ L. alacer, a number of Greek loans, etc.).

(3) Metrical evidence (i. e. the observation that metrically strong syllables in Latin verse happen to be accented somewhat more often than statistically expected) can be irrelevant since such involvement of accent in meter could be just another means of adding expressive force to the verse (like alliteration etc.), irrespective of its phonetic nature.

My reply was opinionate (without marking this explicitly), and I'm sorry if all the above sounded Octavianish to you, but Dewrad's wording kinda provoked that :)

[CGreathouse]

The reason for writing a breve is usually to indicate beyond doubt that this vowel, which according to one of the various length guidelines "vocalis ante vocalem brevis" and that kind of stuff should be long, but it isn't. In other words, the breve is manly used to mark exceptions to the rules.

Since you mention guidelines (my original question)... what are they?

[Dewrad]

Wow! *Two* people noticed that I said something not in the manual

I don't follow here - the assumption I know is that the period of intial stress (which resulted in the reduction and /or change of quality of vowels) came before the classically attested penultimate/antepenultimate accent. Or are we talking about something else here?

You're right, this is the current consensus, more-less. I've never been happy with this, however, since it makes reference to "stress" while implying sheer ignorance on the nature of "stress" (and related phenomena, cross-linguistically) on the reader's side.

Not wishing to sound overly reductionist, am I correct in saying that your major objection to the communis opinio is that you think that the phonetic nature of Classical Latin's "stress-accent" (i.e. the Dreimorengesetz we're all familiar with) was one of pitch, rather than stress? Or are you disputing an earlier stage of strong initial stress as well?

[Ser]

The reason for writing a breve is usually to indicate beyond doubt that this vowel, which according to one of the various length guidelines "vocalis ante vocalem brevis" and that kind of stuff should be long, but it isn't. In other words, the breve is manly used to mark exceptions to the rules.

Since you mention guidelines (my original question)... what are they?

Maybe not so much as guidelines but "places where statistically words tend to have a long vowel". For example, in -are verbs, the -a- is usually long, but not in dare "to give", so a book may present it as dăre to remind the reader about it (or to call their attention to it). Final i tends to be long except for a handful of words e.g. nisi (nisĭ), and sometimes short and sometimes long in a few others e.g. ubi (ubĭ or ubī), so a book may want to call the reader's attention to that.

[Basilius]

Not wishing to sound overly reductionist, am I correct in saying that your major objection to the communis opinio is that you think that the phonetic nature of Classical Latin's "stress-accent" (i.e. the Dreimorengesetz we're all familiar with) was one of pitch, rather than stress? Or are you disputing an earlier stage of strong initial stress as well?

Well, (1) yes and (2) not exactly, rather I doubt if it's been demonstrated that the factor traditionally identified as initial stress ceased to be active before Classical times.

The pitch is the only thing described by the grammarians (with some non-trivial details mentioned), so it's fair to put onus probandi onto those who deny pitch accent; and IMO they fail to carry the load to their chosen destination point.

What do we know besides pitch?

That (vowel/syllable) duration was hardly seriously affected, because quantity-based meter was perceived by ear, so uneducated audience would immediately react to metrical flaws. (And this is already bad for a cumulative accent, i. e. "dynamic stress").

That at least at some point before the Classical times there was a massive vowel reduction, and that word-initial syllables were protected from such by some factor. For the traditional view, this implies the explication that this factor was "stress" as well, and thus could not co-exist with the "stress" on penult/antepenult(/final overlong syllable). IMO, an invalid argument, since we haven't demonstrated yet the involvement in accent of any factor other than pitch; and for example, intensity contours in some modern languages involve initial intensity which proves to be compatible not only with pitch accents but even with true cumulative accent (dynamic stress), e. g. in Russian and IIRC French. In fact, it has never been demonstrated (AFAIK) that this factor didn't work in Classical Latin, since everybody has been mesmerized by the notion of one solid "stress"; and I wouldn't say that data suggesting the activity of this factor (or rather, the type of positional vowel reduction it blocked) in post-Classical language are completely lacking.

Also, one idea that has always stricken me as nonsensically farfetched is that Latin-speaking elite might adopt a foreign (Greek) accent which remained alien to people in the street. What I do buy, however, is the hypothesis that educated speakers' pronunciation of foreign loans could be more faithful to the source language and thus allow for more violations of native speech automatisms (which might include the non-initial reduction); I believe this is how one can interpret e. g. the difference between Classical and "Proto-Romance" forms of many Greek loans.