Re: Metrical Stress, Feet, etc.
| From: | Christophe Grandsire <christophe.grandsire@...> |
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| Date: | Sunday, February 8, 2004, 20:18 |
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En réponse à Ray Brown :
>But what I've never really got to grips with is French metrics which are
>different from either the quantitative rhythms of ancient Greek and
>Classical Latin or the stress based rhythms of English & other languages
>with stress based rhythms.
>
>I dearly like to have one (or more) of our francophone conlangers
>enlighten by you and me on French metrics.
I must say this surprises me greatly. I mean, the quantitative metrics and
stress-based metrics are far more complicated than the French metrics,
which are about as simple as you can make, so I fail to see what is
complicated in French metrics...
In French length does not exist and stress is not phonemic. As a result,
all syllables are pronounced with the same length, whether unstressed or
stressed. And French metrics are based on number of syllables, so simple it
is! The "king" of verses in French is the "alexandrin", which means each
verse is twelve syllables *exactly*, no more no less. Stress doesn't take
part of it at all. Other verse forms are named after the number of
syllables in the verse (another common verse is the "octosyllabe", i.e.
eight syllables per verse.
In French the terms "syllable" and "foot" are for most purposes synonymous.
They are different in some cases because "syllable" refers to the written
thing, while "foot" refers to the spoken thing. With all our silent final
-e's, this means that words which in writing are two syllables are just one
syllable in speaking, i.e. one foot. Something like "pierre": stone may be
syllabified as two syllables "pier-re", but in speaking it's just one
syllable /pjER/, and thus one foot. But that's something that English
speaking people should understand, their spelling being full of those
silent final -e's too :)) .
So once you've understood that French metrics are based on the number of
syllables in a verse and nothing else, you've understood everything about
them! No wonder most of French poetry is based on the rhyme rather than the
rhythm :) .
Christophe Grandsire.
http://rainbow.conlang.free.fr
You need a straight mind to invent a twisted conlang.
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