Re: quantitative meter, accent and verse form

* William Annis said on 2002-04-10 21:57:07 +0200
>         I'm curious to know:
>
>             1) if anyone has created any languages where vowel
> quantity is significant;
Yep. There are long *consonants* too, however, and I don't know whether
*they* are significant in poetic metre.

The possible codas (the part of the syllable without the 'onset', that
is the first consonant[s] if any) are:

V
V:
VC
VC:
V:C
V:C:
C:

>             2) if so, was stress or pitch accent employed, or none at
> all; and finally
Depends on dialect/accent; one of the main accents I'm investigating uses
low pitch for short sounds and high pitch for long sounds.

Then there's the difference between stress-timed and syllable-timed languages,
anyone know a good reference for the latter?

>             3) has anyone tried to work with formal verse forms in
> their constructed languages?  Successfully?
Yes and no.

I've mostly used mere syllable-counting, as I can't quite make up my mind
what constitutes a light beat or a heavy beat (or double heavy or triple
heavy...). End-rhyme doesn't really suit the language as it is so suffix-
happy. Besides, I've always preferred free verse </cop-out>

I've thought of basing it on moras but I don't really know how moras work
in real life, and many a library (or net) search haven't turned up anything
explaining it *well*, or with enough examples.


t.