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CONLANG Digest - 5 Feb 2004 to 6 Feb 2004 (#2004-36)

From:Mangiat <mangiat@...>
Date:Saturday, February 7, 2004, 17:25
> Date: Fri, 6 Feb 2004 21:23:44 +0000 > From: Ray Brown <ray.brown@...> > Subject: Re: Metrical Stress, Feet, etc. > > > As for the initial syllable stress of pre-Classical Latin, one has only to > consider the weakening of vowels after the initial syllable in compounds, > e.g. > ad + facio --> afficio > ad + factum --> affectum > con + claudo --> concludo > ob + caedo --> occido > etc.
Ahah... I knew of early Latin stress on the first syllable, but I had never linked it to the vowel weakening.
> School kids normally chant such verse (if at all now), ignoring the word > stresses and just going along with the beat, so to speak. That's what we > did when I was at school and that, according to IIRC Maurizio Gavioli, do > Italian schoolkids -
Yes, that's what we did! I still remember the first line of the fourth book of Virgil's Aeneid: "At regina gravi iamdudum saucia cura"... ['at re'dZina gra'vi jam'dudum 'sautSa 'kura]. Luca
> and I suspect it's pretty common elsewhere. Now > Sidney Allen also suggests (in Vox Latin) that the Romans did this as well > and that this formed a 'counterpoint' with natural word stress of the > ordinary language.