16
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How do we know the quantity of vowels followed by several consonants?
The length of vowels with “hidden quantity” can often be discovered from one of the following sources of information:
Explicit descriptions of vowel length in ancient texts
“Lachmann’s law” is a well-...
- 26.5k
13
votes
Why is the "u" in "nuntius" and "nuntiare" long by exception?
For my answer, I will use Bennett's New Latin Grammar as a reference. There are two important rules which come together to make a long ū in nūntius.
As you noted, a vowel followed by nt or nd is ...
- 38.5k
13
votes
Is there any rule to the length of "e" in "-ensis<"?
As varro says, it's always long. This is predictable as one example of a more general rule that any vowel is always long before "ns" or "nf".
This rule of vowel length is thought ...
- 26.5k
13
votes
How did Caesar pronounce Latin overlined vowels?
Q1: my first question is whether overlining is the same as "stress"?
Not really. The overline indicates vowel length—how long you sustain the vowel sound—which is a component of stress in ...
- 64.6k
12
votes
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What is the quantity of the "a" in "maxime"?
On the one hand, we have MAX(IMO), A with an apex in CIL VI 2080 17
However, as De Angelis and Chilà 2015 put it,
"the interpretation of the vowel of maximus as long is anything but certain" (p. ...
- 11.6k
11
votes
Did the Romans confuse a long vowel with two short ones?
Well, there is some fairly simple evidence that a sequence of two identical short vowels could in some cases be treated as equivalent to a single long vowel, namely that the former can contract into ...
- 30.6k
11
votes
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How can one predict the length of theme vowels in verbs?
Whether or not this is how the forms really developed, this is how I organize it in my head.
And it has proven quite efficient, so I consider it a good description of what classical Latin conjugation ...
- 110k
11
votes
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Interpretation of circumflex in a poem from 1621
*Please see addendum at the bottom
I have found two possible explanations for the circumflex: (1) to indicate a long vowel and (2) to indicate an ablative. Both of these functions would seem to ...
- 8,611
11
votes
In contemporary spoken Latin, do people mark the 1st-declension ablative case?
tl;dr: as the risk of mistake is higher than for other suffixes, in contexts where analyzing the cases is difficult (like chanting psalms in a fast pace) people often distinguish the length less for -...
- 1,833
11
votes
How do I know where to place macrons?
Macrons are mainly pronunciation guides, telling which vowels are pronounced long.
In some cases they can resolve ambiguities, when two words only differ by the length a vowel.
Using them is not ...
- 110k
11
votes
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Why is the "u" in "nuntius" and "nuntiare" long by exception?
Monophthongization (of diphthongs in Latin) most likely happened after Osthoff's shortening (in Proto-Italic).
Osthoff's law: A long vowel before a liquid, nasal, or glide plus a stop was shortened ...
- 11.6k
11
votes
Accepted
What makes a syllable "heavy" or "light"?
Any syllable containing a long vowel is heavy, but not all heavy syllables contain long vowels.
Syllabification is a fairly abstract concept, so unfortunately, there are multiple conflicting ...
- 26.5k
11
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Accepted
Is the 'i' in 'videt' long or short?
The i in videt is short. The length of a vowel in classical Latin pronunciation is defined by its duration—its "quantity"—as opposed to its "quality", i.e. the nature of the sound: ...
- 15.8k
11
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How did Caesar pronounce Latin overlined vowels?
In addition to Draconis' excellent answer, you may also be interested to know that:
The overline is called a macron.
Macrons were not used by the ancient Romans, and today they are almost only used ...
- 31.7k
11
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Why does the length of a vowel before verb endings change?
Most people just memorize it. There are only four patterns to learn—all first-conjugation verbs will go -ō -ās -at -āmus -ātis -ant, for example—so this tends to be enough.
From a historical-...
- 64.6k
10
votes
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How do I know if there's an "invisible yod"?
To my knowledge, the compounds of jaciō are the only words where this complication occurs. And in Imperial Latin, these words frequently scan with a light initial syllable, indicating loss of /j/ and ...
- 26.5k
10
votes
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Why is the prefix con- sometimes short, sometimes long?
We can consider the underlying length of the vowel in con- to be short: this is the default.
In cōnsēdī, and in the majority of cases where the vowel in the prefix cō̆(n)- is long, it is a result of ...
- 26.5k
9
votes
Accepted
Is there any rule to the length of "e" in "-ensis<"?
It's always long, but some dictionaries don't bother to mark the length since it's "long by position" anyway, so it doesn't matter for a metrical point of view.
- 4,668
9
votes
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Are vowels long before "gn"?
First of all, it's important to note that syllables containing a vowel + gn combination are long (or, less confusingly, "heavy"), regardless of the length of the vowel itself. As Bennet says:
A ...
- 11.2k
9
votes
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Why a long ē in rēx, rēgis but not in regere or regiō?
My first thought was that this looks like an ablaut variant. After looking into it a bit, this seems possible, but far from certain. I'm not familar with the field of IE literature, but using Google, ...
- 26.5k
9
votes
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Are there other verbs in -uō?
There is abluō, abluere, abluī, ablūtus.
And acuō, acuere, acuī, acūtus.
And arguō, arguere, arguī, argūtus.
And compluō, compluere, compluī, complūtus.
And exuō, exuere, exuī, exūtus.
And futuō, ...
- 19.8k
9
votes
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How can you tell whether prefixed ‘in-’ is the preposition ‘in’ or Indo-European ‘in-’?
The negative prefix in- typically attaches to an adjective, while the prepositional prefix in- typically attaches to a verb. The main complication to this distribution is the existence of adjectives ...
- 26.5k
9
votes
Why is the root vowels of 'salsus' and 'saliō' from 'sāl' shortened?
The stem of sāl is săl-.
This is documented in many dictionaries, including Lewis and Short.
Most derivatives are taken from the stem of the noun, not the nominative.
The only outlier with respect ...
- 110k
9
votes
Accepted
Why is the root vowels of 'salsus' and 'saliō' from 'sāl' shortened?
As has been pointed out, it's the long vowel in the nom. and voc. sg. of sāl that requires explanation, not the short vowel everywhere else, and it doesn't look like we have a good consensus.
Sihler, ...
- 8,638
9
votes
Does vowel quantity ever change in the root of a word during conjugation?
Yes; this is more common with conjugation (inflection of verbs) than with declension (inflection of nouns or adjectives), but there are examples with both.
To set aside the issue of "stems", ...
- 26.5k
9
votes
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Knowing the two quantities of 'est'
Servius (4th cent. CE) in his commentary on Virgil writes:
sānē EDO habet et rēctam, sed antīquam dēclīnātiōnem, ut 'edō edis edit', et anomalam, ut 'edō ēs ēst': quārum secunda et tertia persōnae ...
- 5,957
8
votes
In contemporary spoken Latin, do people mark the 1st-declension ablative case?
I don't know about the Vatican. But I've met very few people at conventicula, living-Latin events, etc., who make any distinction whatsoever. I don't generally have a problem, I think in part because ...
- 16.4k
8
votes
Are vowels long before "gn"?
There is some inscriptional evidence that has been interpreted as indicating that short -ĭ- before -gn- was lengthened to -ī-, or perhaps remained short but was raised in quality from [ɪ] to [i].
That ...
- 26.5k
8
votes
In contemporary spoken Latin, do people mark the 1st-declension ablative case?
In contemporary spoken Latin in Finnish all vowel quantities are carefully articulated.
There is nothing special about the first declension ablative.
I have therefore learned to expect it, and it will ...
- 110k
8
votes
Accepted
Vowel length in future perfect indicative and perfect conjunctive
short notes/quotes from professional, serious, research-based sources (I thought it was clear to everyone what kind of sources I use; will make small changes later):
The paradigm from Tronskii 1960:
...
- 11.6k
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