Help! Comenius Vestibulum

This board is a composition workshop, like a writers' workshop: post your work with questions about style or vocabulary, comment on other people's work, post composition challenges on some topic or form, or just dazzle us with your inventive use of galliambics.
imd
Textkit Neophyte
Posts: 17
Joined: Tue Apr 04, 2017 10:32 pm

Re: Help! Comenius Vestibulum

Post by imd »

I'm afraid my knowledge is far from advanced enough to make inferences from either meter or etymology. I am inclined to trust a dictionary, but if you think you are as qualified as the dictionary writers to decide the length, I understand. Dictionaries can be wrong.

Timothée
Textkit Enthusiast
Posts: 564
Joined: Fri Oct 09, 2015 4:34 pm

Re: Help! Comenius Vestibulum

Post by Timothée »

Even good dictionary writers will disagree on these things: one will give testis, other tēstis. OLD, for instance, doesn’t want to mark lengths of great many words where the length is hidden from the meter. These include words such Marcus and actus, which we know for certain that they had a long a even though metrics won’t help.

Firmus is a case in point. The best etymology, which presumes it’s a cognate with for example Sanskrit dharma-, requires firmus < *fermus,¹ which again requires *fĕrmus > fĭrmus. French ferme, Italian fermo suppose ĭ, as well. Spanish and Portuguese contradict this, but most importantly Latin sources do so, as firmus is preserved written with long i from the Antiquity.

Compensatory lengthening on -e- (ters- > tes-) may not be necessary here, as the syllable is perforce always heavy. So maybe we go with tĕstis, tĕstimōnium, although in the end it’s obviously Ursinus’ decision and judgment.

¹The reason for this is that PIE *e can give Skr. a, but PIE *i cannot do that. When we return to Latin, development *e > i is possible and well-known, but it must be short ĕ that behaves so, and moreover Sanskrit does have short ă (the word could namely have existed in PIE as *dhermos).
Last edited by Timothée on Wed May 03, 2017 11:05 am, edited 1 time in total.

imd
Textkit Neophyte
Posts: 17
Joined: Tue Apr 04, 2017 10:32 pm

Re: Help! Comenius Vestibulum

Post by imd »

Interesting! Where would you point a beginner with an interest in these sorts of investigations?

Timothée
Textkit Enthusiast
Posts: 564
Joined: Fri Oct 09, 2015 4:34 pm

Re: Help! Comenius Vestibulum

Post by Timothée »

Probably Leumann’s grammar is the best. It discusses a little both firmus and testis (L. doesn’t mark its e as long, by the way).

imd
Textkit Neophyte
Posts: 17
Joined: Tue Apr 04, 2017 10:32 pm

Re: Help! Comenius Vestibulum

Post by imd »

OK, that's definitely not anything for me to get into anytime soon (I can't read German, for one)! Thank your for the diligent replies.

Post Reply