Questions tagged [vowel-quantity]
For questions about vowel length.
84
questions
16
votes
2
answers
870
views
Why is the "u" in "nuntius" and "nuntiare" long by exception?
First of all, a warm hello to all the users here!
I was recently thinking about the pronunciation of nūntius and nūntiāre along with its derivatives (such as prōnūntiāre). According to "Latin for ...
- 163
13
votes
2
answers
498
views
Did the Romans confuse a long vowel with two short ones?
Consider the words sūs and sŭŭs.
The former has one long u, the latter has two short ones in two syllables.
For another similar pair with a different vowel, consider īmus and ...
- 109k
13
votes
1
answer
508
views
How can one predict the length of theme vowels in verbs?
The theme vowels a, e, and i in infinitives are long. But, in other forms of those verbs, they can be short. But when, exactly? What are the rules for this? And how about the suppletive vowels used ...
- 19.6k
12
votes
1
answer
489
views
Etymology and pronunciation of words ending in “-iasis”
Unfortunately, I don’t own any Latin or Greek dictionaries or etymological texts, but I tried to research this topic on the internet.
Here is what I found:
Perseus: words ending in “iasis” in L&S ...
- 25.3k
11
votes
3
answers
6k
views
What makes a syllable "heavy" or "light"?
The rules for positioning of syllable stress in Latin are relatively simple; they are as follows:
In two-syllable words, the stress always falls on the first syllable.
In three or more syllable ...
- 2,511
11
votes
2
answers
345
views
What is the quantity of the "a" in "maxime"?
When I come across the word maxime in macronized texts, it usually lacks a macron over the first vowel. In Ørberg's Lingua Latīna series, however, in which the macrons are (from what I understand) ...
- 16.3k
11
votes
2
answers
629
views
Are vowels long before "gn"?
Allen and Greenough, §10d, provide a general rule:
A vowel before ns, nf, gn, is long: as in cōnstāns, īnferō, māgnus [emphasis modified]
This seems to agree with Priscian:
'gnus' quoque vel '...
- 11.1k
10
votes
1
answer
387
views
Interpretation of circumflex in a poem from 1621
A poem from 1621 contains one ô and one â.
The ô is the interjection ô and the â is in the relative pronoun quâ.
No circumflexes are used elsewhere in the poem.
Does the circumflex (or caret or ...
- 109k
9
votes
4
answers
356
views
In contemporary spoken Latin, do people mark the 1st-declension ablative case?
In contemporary spoken Latin, such as (I think) occurs among canon lawyers in the Vatican and at Latin-only conventicula, do people clearly lengthen the -ā at the end of first-declension nouns in the ...
- 15.5k
9
votes
2
answers
1k
views
Is the 'i' in 'videt' long or short?
I am currently reading Ørberg’s Lingua Latina Per Se Illustrata, where he thankfully makes use of the macron to distinguish long vowels form short ones. However, and I have seen this elsewhere as well,...
- 669
9
votes
1
answer
1k
views
How do we know the quantity of vowels followed by several consonants?
Judging by dictionaries and grammars, we seem to know the length of almost every vowel in classical Latin.
For word-final vowels and those followed by a single consonant, the length can be figured out ...
- 109k
9
votes
3
answers
5k
views
How do I know where to place macrons?
How do I use macrons? I understand what they do and how they do it, I just don't understand how you know when and where to place them.
9
votes
1
answer
255
views
How do I know if there's an "invisible yod"?
I've been told that the first syllable of abiciō is long by position, because it's actually an underlying *abjiciō, which causes it to be syllabified as *ab-ji-ci-ō before the *ji simplifies to i. So ...
- 59.9k
9
votes
2
answers
560
views
Vowel length in future perfect indicative and perfect conjunctive
I want to compare future perfect active indicative and perfect active conjunctive.
They look identical, apart from first person singular (cogitavero ≠ cogitaverim).
But is there a difference in the ...
- 109k
9
votes
1
answer
259
views
Knowing the two quantities of 'est'
There are several forms of ĕsse and ēsse (= edere) that only differ by the quantity of the initial vowel, perhaps the most common one being ĕst/ēst.
How do we know this difference in quantities?
...
- 109k
9
votes
1
answer
271
views
Understanding vowel quantity in fieri
The verb fieri has an unusual conjugation, and one of the weird aspects is the long I before many vowels: fīō, fīās, fīet…
Why is the I long?
Does the origin of ...
- 109k
8
votes
2
answers
389
views
Is there any rule to the length of "e" in "-ensis<"?
Is there any rule to the length of e in -ensis?
I looked up the following words in Perseus (which give entries from 'Lewis & Short' and 'Elem. Lewis') and Wiktionary, without being able to ...
- 1,493
8
votes
2
answers
447
views
Why a long ē in rēx, rēgis but not in regere or regiō?
I'm assuming it's not a phonological thing—like, if the ē in rēx was compensatorily lengthened because of g—>x, then it would be regis, not rēgis, right?
- 16.3k
8
votes
2
answers
257
views
Are there other verbs in -uō?
Someone asked me recently about the conjugation of the obscene verb futuō, futuere, futuī, futūtus—and in particular about the quantity of the ū in the participle.
I intended to look at some other -...
- 59.9k
8
votes
3
answers
712
views
Vowel shortening before another vowel: Exceptions
I am rather ashamed to admit that I used to pronounce Alexandrea (or Alexandria, cf. Ἀλεξάνδρεια) incorrectly in Latin, that is I mistakenly applied the famous rule "vocalis ante vocalem ...
- 11.5k
8
votes
2
answers
328
views
Was the old ablative pronoun "med" or "mēd"?
In Classical times, the first singular ablative pronoun ("from me") was mē, with a long ē. However, the older form seems to have been med, with a final -d.
Do we know whether this earlier form was ...
- 59.9k
8
votes
1
answer
156
views
Is the U long or short in the forms ussi and ustus of the verb ūro?
I'm uncertain about the length of the u in the perfect and perfect passive participle stems of the verb uro /uːroː/.
My research
Lewis (1890) gives "ūrō ūssī, ūstus" but doesn't explain why....
- 25.3k
8
votes
1
answer
317
views
The length of the final vowel in first declension nouns (Greek)
How can you tell whether a first declension noun ends in a short or long vowel?
Background
When the word is written and accented, I may be able to tell. (Not always. E.g. θύρᾱ if without the macron)...
- 1,493
8
votes
1
answer
136
views
Was vowel quantity observed when singing?
It's well established that vowel length was phonemic in Latin, and that it played an important role in poetic verse. It seems probable to me that it also mattered when singing, but do we have evidence ...
- 423
7
votes
3
answers
621
views
What is the correct vowel quantity for words formed from sĭ̄gn-?
My dictionary (Latinsk ordbok – latinsk–norsk, Cappelen, Oslo 2007) has for all instances of words with sĭ̄gn- a long ī, e.g.:
īnsīgniō, 4.
īnsīgnis, adj. m. komp. (sīgnum)
īnsīgne, is, n.
sīgnātē, ...
- 3,353
7
votes
2
answers
1k
views
Is it rare to elide the final vowel if it is long?
In the Ars Poetica we find the line:
posse linenda cedro et levi servanda cupresso
which pedecerto scans as
Pṓssĕ lĭnḗndă cĕdro‿ḗt lēuī́ sēruā́ndă cŭprḗsso
In C.O. Brink's commentary on Horace we ...
- 2,239
7
votes
2
answers
359
views
What is the correct vowel quantity for the participle of legō?
In the following, vowel quantities which I am uncertain of, will be marked with both a breve and a macron, so they should not be considered the answer; that is what I am searching for.
This whole ...
- 3,353
7
votes
2
answers
420
views
What evidence points to a long ō in the first syllable of nōscō's present-tense form?
I've read in various sources that the verb nosco 'know' had a long vowel in the first syllable in Classical Latin pronunciation: nōscō [noːskoː]. I'm wondering what the linguistic evidence is for the ...
- 25.3k
7
votes
1
answer
251
views
Vowel Quantity in Third Person Plural of Passive Voice
Cārī collēgae,
The third person plural of the passive voice in the present stem has a peculiarity that I noticed a couple of weeks ago (far later than I should have, I might add) and have been curious ...
7
votes
1
answer
187
views
Short vowels in lucubrando
I came across a poem from 1621 written in Sapphic stanza.
It contains this line:
pervigil Christi, lucubrando sudans
To scan that, the third word must be lŭcŭbrandŏ.
L&S ...
- 109k
7
votes
1
answer
371
views
Did Latin ever have a rule of lengthening vowels in monosyllables ending in /s/?
I was surprised by the following portion of "Exceptions to rhotacism", by Kyle Gorman (2012):
Latin has a bimoraic minimal word requirement, implemented by a process of Subminimal ...
- 25.3k
7
votes
1
answer
128
views
Is there a dictionary for pronunciation explanations?
All dictionaries I have seen that state vowel quantities simply state them but do not explain how the quantity of each vowel was determined.
The same goes for the distinctions between vocalic and ...
- 109k
6
votes
1
answer
526
views
Why does the length of a vowel before verb endings change?
I'm learning Latin and I see that the stem I am supposed to add things onto keeps changing from long to short and back again. For example, take teneō, tenēre, tenuī, tentum.
As I see the present ...
- 63
6
votes
1
answer
913
views
Are there any words in Latin that are "light"?
In Latin, every syllable is either "light" or "heavy". A "heavy" syllable is one that has a long vowel and/or a coda consonant, and a "light" syllable is anything else. This distinction is important ...
- 59.9k
6
votes
1
answer
141
views
Why is there a short ŭ in rŭtus?
In Cerberus's list of u-stem verbs, rŭō, rŭere, rŭī, rŭtus is the only one with a short ŭ in the participle stem.
Why is this? Does it go back to different types of verbs in PIE, as with stătus ...
- 59.9k
6
votes
1
answer
284
views
In ancient Attic Greek, how (un)stable were "ΝΣ"/"ΝΖ" and preceding vowels?
In Latin, it is thought (as far as I know) that within a single word, /ns/ and /nf/ were always preceded by a long vowel.
This is a somewhat complicated result of a hypothesized sound change in words ...
- 25.3k
6
votes
1
answer
468
views
The correct use of the breve in Latin
Correct me if I'm wrong. There are 6 diphthongs in Latin:
ae
au
ei
eu
oe
ui
So if one were to encounter ăĕ it would follow that both vowels would be short and do not together form diphthong which ...
- 2,239
6
votes
1
answer
137
views
An unambiguous example of 'īt'
The regular perfect them form for "he went" is iit.
In an answer to this question about two short versus one long vowel, TKR mentions that this form can be contracted to īt.
In a text without macrons ...
- 109k
6
votes
1
answer
178
views
Unexpected long vowels in Plautus before a word-final T
In a comment to my answer on a vowel length question, Vincent Krebs pointed out that Plautus does not follow the classical rules that I laid out:
Plautus does not always shorten the vowel before -t. ...
- 109k
6
votes
1
answer
118
views
Why is ū long in "Vitruvius"?
Lewis & Short and Gaffiot's dictionaries both mark long ū in the name Vitrūvius. How do we know this, and do we know the reason for it?
In my experience, most words with the sequence -uvi- + vowel ...
- 25.3k
6
votes
1
answer
641
views
Quality of final ĕ ĭ ŏ
Evidence from the Romance languages provides fairly good evidence for distinct qualities, [ɛ] vs. [eː], for ĕ and ē in stressed syllables when followed by a consonant. Likewise for ŏ and ō as [ɔ] vs. [...
- 25.3k
6
votes
0
answers
113
views
What is the etymology of Ἁμαδρυάς (Hamadryas)? Is the second alpha actually long?
I am trying to find more information about the formation and pronunciation of the Greek noun Ἁμαδρυάς, taken into Latin as Hamadryas. L&S transcribes the second a of the Latin form with a macron: ...
- 25.3k
6
votes
0
answers
136
views
How many vowel qualities did Oscan have?
Oscan was an Italic language related to Latin, which died out somewhere in the early centuries CE. It's notable for being used in the Fabulae Atellanae and for being the source of various loans into ...
- 59.9k
5
votes
2
answers
352
views
Why is the root vowels of 'salsus' and 'saliō' from 'sāl' shortened?
Working my way through the Duolingo course, I noticed that salsus has a short root vowel, even though sāl, sālis¹ is long-voweled. The etymology entry on Wiktionary states that the adjective is from ...
- 3,353
5
votes
2
answers
328
views
Does any Greek word have a geminate consonant after a long vowel?
I recently noticed a pattern in loans from Hebrew into Greek: the letter šin (or sin, or łin if you're really archaic) is transcribed σσ after a short vowel, σ elsewhere.
My knowledge of Classical ...
- 59.9k
5
votes
2
answers
789
views
How can you tell whether prefixed ‘in-’ is the preposition ‘in’ or Indo-European ‘in-’?
Background
The verb īnsum has the prefix in-. Prefixing in/in- to words, changes their meaning to ‘in’, ‘on’ et sim., or ‘un-’, ‘non’ et sim. (ɔ:¹ negation).² However, according to Wiktionary, the ...
- 3,353
5
votes
2
answers
255
views
Syllable and mora count for long vowel with iota subscript?
Introduction
I have begun learning Ancient Greek with the revised edition of Clyde Pharr’s work. Some of the case endings are (as expected) slightly different than what I have seen to be the case in ...
- 3,353
5
votes
2
answers
403
views
Does vowel quantity ever change in the root of a word during conjugation?
I have built a database of Latin words but am having a few problems. I have two databases, one is from Python's CLTK, the other is from online-latin-dictionary.com (OLD). The Python database is ...
- 2,239
5
votes
1
answer
691
views
Why is the prefix con- sometimes short, sometimes long?
A friend sent me this image:
Her question was simple: Is the Latin any good? The Latin indeed is good, and if one accepts the English to be in LOLcat, the English checks out as well.
However …
I also ...
- 3,353
5
votes
1
answer
61
views
Why does ‘lūdīs’ end in a short syllable in Ov. Ep. Sapph. 16?
In Ovid’s Epistulae 16.152–153, the following two lines are found (‘eligiac couplet’, I believe is the term in English):
mṓre tuǽ gentī́s nitidā́ dum nū́da palǽstrā̆
lū́dis et és ...
- 3,353