Questions tagged [vowel]
The vowel tag has no usage guidance.
30
questions
16
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3answers
3k views
Can "ee" appear in Latin?
There are a few instances in Latin where words are spelled with two vowels next to each other, in hiatus: filii "sons", metuunt "they fear".
Now, the last words of the Emperor Julian II are normally ...
12
votes
1answer
371 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 ...
11
votes
3answers
4k 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 ...
11
votes
1answer
525 views
Did the Romans ever distinguish long vowels in writing?
In most modern writing of Latin, long vowels are distinguished from short vowels by using macrons (e.g, āēīōū). As far as I know, however, ancient authors rarely, if ever, distinguished long vowels ...
11
votes
1answer
488 views
Where did the passive infinitive come from?
The etymology of the present active infinitive seems well-documented. Proto-Italic had an infinitive-like suffix *-si, so *dōnā- + *-si = *dōnāsi > dōnāre by regular sound changes (s → z → r between ...
9
votes
3answers
388 views
When is there a U instead of an E in gerund(ive)?
Tuomo Pekkanen's Latin grammar mentions (§52.3) that the -e- added to the present stem before -nd- in the gerund and gerundive (in the third and fourth conjugations) can be replaced with a -u-.
For ...
8
votes
3answers
3k views
When is "ei" a diphthong?
Many introductory Latin books will explain that Classical Latin has four diphthongs: ae and au are common, while oe and ei are rarer. (Eu and ui also show up, but if I understand right that's a Greek ...
7
votes
1answer
371 views
Are there minimal pairs between vowels and semivowels?
In Classical times, no distinction was made in writing between /u/ and /w/, or between /i/ and /j/. This distinction seems to have been phonemic, because we see names like Jūlius vs Iūlus.
But are ...
7
votes
1answer
241 views
Homo from hemo?
I stumbled upon a Latin grammar from 1916 today, and it mentions that nemo comes from ne and an old version of homo, namely hemo.
Is this theory considered valid these days?
What support is there for ...
6
votes
3answers
441 views
How many syllables are there in 'mortuus'?
I asked yesterday why the participle mortuus has two us.
When Rafael asked whether one of the us were consonantal, I had no other evidence than being taught that they are both vocalic.
Arguing by ...
6
votes
1answer
165 views
Variation between syllabic and non-syllabic V: in what contexts is it possible?
Allen's Vox Latina, 2nd edition (1988) metions that there is occasional "poetic interchange" in Latin of syllabic [u] and non-syllabic [w], mentioning trisyllabic silua and disyllabic genva ...
6
votes
1answer
122 views
Are there verbs in -o-?
Verbs conjugated in -a- (amō, amāre, amāvī, amātus), in -e- (habeō, habēre, habuī, habitus), and in -i- (audio, audīre, audīvī, auditus) are common and well-known. Verbs in -u- (acuō, acuere, acuī, ...
5
votes
1answer
162 views
βυκάνη < būcina: vowel reduction undone in borrowings from Latin?
So I've come across this word βῡκάνη, ostensibly borrowed from Latin būcina ('an ox-horn trumpet'), from bou- ('ox') + canere ('to sing'). The lack of vowel reduction is immediately striking; ...
5
votes
1answer
118 views
How long was the privative alpha?
In Ancient Greek, the "privative alpha" is a negating prefix, cognate to Latin in- (as in "in-conceivable", not "in-flammable") and English "un-". It survives in English in words like "a-typical" and "...
5
votes
1answer
122 views
Forming a compound with the second word starting with a vowel
For both Latin and Greek, what rules govern the formation of a compound of two words, with the second word starting with a vowel?
I'm specifically most interested in the rules for Latin, since this ...
5
votes
1answer
93 views
Which words never elide?
I know the vocative ō doesn't elide with a following word in Latin, though it can elide with a preceding one. For example, Catullus LXI.39:
dicite "o Hymenaee Hymen…"
For metrical reasons, this ...
5
votes
1answer
82 views
Why vesperascit instead of vesperescit?
I was recently working on a little translation project and my intuition and memory suggested that "evening comes" is vesperescit.
Checking dictionaries corrected me: it is vesperascit instead.
Why is ...
5
votes
1answer
474 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. [...
4
votes
3answers
236 views
Do vowels before /j/ make diphthongs?
In my experience, Latin has a short list of diphthongs that are found in native words. This list includes ei /ej/, as in dēinde.
However, there are other vowels that can appear before /j/: see major /...
4
votes
1answer
137 views
Could the u in e.g. aufero be related to the u in Mycenaean a-pu-do-ke?
I came across this Mycenaen word when I was trapped in a Wikipaedia chain:
the verbal augment is almost entirely absent from Mycenaean Greek with only one known exception, (𐀀𐀟𐀈𐀐), a-pe-do-ke (...
4
votes
1answer
284 views
Which vowel combinations contract?
In Attic Greek in particular, there are well-understood patterns of "vowel contraction" that replace two vowels in hiatus with a single vowel or diphthong.
But in Latin, contraction seems much more ...
3
votes
2answers
101 views
Is long vowel feature completely lost in deviated languages?
In Latin, some vowels are marked by a macron, they are long vowels. However, I found that in French and Spanish there's no macron in their writing.
Is the long vowel feature completely lost in the ...
3
votes
1answer
148 views
Vowel hiatus and non-diphthong vowel pairs (compared to Romance languages)
Classical Latin's 6 major diphthongs are clear-cut, phonologically speaking. We know ae is pronounced as one phoneme, such as in [ˈsae̯.pɛ], "saepe." However, we often come across words that have 2 ...
3
votes
1answer
489 views
How was iī pronounced?
Most of the time, Latin doesn't allow two instances of the same vowel next to each other: forms like *mee (from meus) are replaced with alternatives like mī.
However, in I-stem second nouns, the ...
3
votes
0answers
63 views
What is the nature of variation between αι and α in (Pre-)Greek words?
When trying to answer a previous question about the patronymic derived from Asclepius, I came across the following quotation from Beekes in the Wikipedia entry on Asclepius:
The name is typical for ...
2
votes
1answer
166 views
On vowel lengths in Latin
This question originates from this thread upon suggestion of Joonas Ilmavirta.
Q. How do we know all the vowel lengths in Latin?
It would be of interest to me if we manage to collect a list with ...
2
votes
0answers
55 views
Arnold and Conway, earlier change of pronunciation of aspirates?
Describing the pronunciation of Greek in schools in the UK, Allen says that a pamphlet by Arnold and Conway, "The Restored Pronunciation of Greek and Latin," pretty much set the standard ...
2
votes
0answers
140 views
Latin diphthongs, vowel qualities
There is one existing question on the SE (search for 'ae pronunciation'), but there are nothing equal to my interests.
My googling returned to me nothing too.
So, maybe somebody here know:
nowadays ...
1
vote
2answers
120 views
Does trisyllabic laxing occur in Latin words like 'decision' before entering English?
There's a phenomenon called Trisyllabic laxing where the vowel in a stressed syllable is shortened if two (or more) syllables follow. If the stressed vowel is in at least* the penultimate syllable (...
1
vote
1answer
100 views
Are there iota or hypsilon contract verbs?
In Greek, verbs are classified as "consonant-stem" or "vowel-stem". Vowel-stem verbs, aptly, have a vowel at the end of their stem. And in the Attic dialect, if this vowel is a short alpha, epsilon, ...