Re: Some help with Latin

Mark J. Reed wrote:
> Confused.  I thought Latin vowel distinctions were originally
> quantitative and later qualitative.
Probably both even from the start. It does appear that, as in modern
German, for example, long vowels were qualitatively tenser/higher than
the short vowels. But in the Classical language the length was the
important thing & qualitative differences were secondary. Eventually in
Vulgar Latin qualitative differences became the dominant feature and
length disappeared as phonemic feature.

> So wouldn't the quantities be
> what had to beaten into these guys, rather than the qualities that
> were alive and well in their everyday speech?
Yes, you're right. A clumsy bit of carelessness on my part- it's the
quantity that was beaten into them.

Sorry for the confusion   :(

> On 9/25/07, R A Brown <ray@...> wrote:
>
>>Benct Philip Jonsson wrote:
>>
>>>R A Brown skrev:
>>>
>>>
>>>>Benct Philip Jonsson wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>On 2007-09-24 R A Brown wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>>Also, Cattulus keeps the -o at the end of 'Nescio' short    ;)
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>Why?
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>Basically, so that it would scan   :)
>>>>
>>>>Normally in Classical Latin final -o is long, except in the words _ego
>>>>(I), duo (two), modo (only), cito_ (quickly) where it was short. But
>>>>you will find that poets will treat the final -o of the 1st person
>>>>singular of verbs and the nominative singular of the 3rd declension as
>>>>short if it suits their purpose; this often the case with the poets
>>>>Martial and Juvenal.
>>>>
>>>
>>>Might this have something to do with vowel length already being lost in
>>>these poets' everyday pronunciation?
>>
>>Yes, in as much as their speech was similar to Vulgar Latin. I imagine
>>that among the educated literati one found in the same person a whole
>>range of speech from the (near) Vulgar Latin with which they
>>communicated with their slaves through to something approaching the
>>'Classic Norm' when speaking with their peers - something like the
>>diglossia that existed in Greece in the days when Katharevousa was the
>>official language.
>>
>>
>>>I guess they could mostly recover the old quantity from
>>>quality distinctions in the everyday pronunciation,
>>
>>No, no - they knew the Classical quality distinctions from their
>>education. In many case it would've been literally beaten into them!
[snip]

--
Ray
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