> 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.