Sceptra Tenens wrote:I personally completely elide short E, reduce U and I to light semivowels, and quickly glide from A and O. Not because I have any evidence for this system, but because it seems right to me personally.
In this earlier thread I quoted a passage about something like this from the grammarians, I think. But you'd have to dig for it if you wanted it, and it might not be exactly what you're talking about.
http://www.textkit.com/greek-latin-forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=8219De hâ re, locum aptum apud grammaticos antiquos priore in filo jam citavi, nisi fallor. Opus sit eum quaerere si eo indiges. Sed audeas ne decepturus sis.Post ScriptumEcce locum paenè aptum,sed alius aptior alibi exstat, ut credo. Mentem muto. Benè est quod quaero.Here's a vaguely relevant thing but there's something more relevant, I think, elsewhere. No, this is probably what I was looking for.
De vitio hiato apud Quintilianum.Quintilian, Institutiones, 9.4, 33-41, on the problem of hiatus and then on M (trans from the internet), wrote:33. To proceed methodically, in the first place, there are some faults so palpable that they incur the reprehension even of the illiterate, such as when two words come together to produce, by the union of the last syllable of the former with the first syllable of the latter, some offensive expression. In the next place, there is the clashing of vowels, for when this occurs, the phrases gape, open, dispart, and seem to labor. Long vowels, especially when they are the same, have the very worst of sound in conjunction, but the hiatus is most remarkable in such vowels as are pronounced with a round or wide opening of the mouth. [i.e., A, O, U]
34. "E" has a flatter and "I" a closer sound, and consequently any fault in the management of them is less perceptible. The speaker who puts short vowels after long ones will give less offense, and still less if he puts short ones before long ones; but the least offense of all is given by the concurrence of two short. In fact, whenever vowels follow vowels, the collision of them will be more or less harsh in proportion to whether the mode in which they are pronounced is more or less similar.
35. A hiatus of vowels, however, is not to be dreaded as any great crime, and indeed I do not know which is worse—too little or too much care in regard to it. The fear of it must necessarily be a restraint on an orator's efforts and divert his attention from points of more consequence. Just as it is a mark of carelessness to be constantly running into this fault, so it is a sign of littleness to be perpetually in dread of it. Not without reason, critics have considered all the followers of Isocrates, and especially Theopompus, to have felt too much solicitude as to this particular.
36. As for Demosthenes and Cicero, they paid it but moderate attention. Indeed, the amalgamation of two vowels, which is called synaloepha, may render a period smoother than it would be if every word retained its own vowel at the end. Sometimes, too, a hiatus is becoming and throws an air of grandeur over what is said, as, Pulchra oratione acta omnino jactare. Besides, syllables that are long in themselves and require a fuller pronunciation gain something from the time that intervenes between the two vowels, as if taking a rest.
37. On this point I shall quote, with the utmost respect, the words of Cicero: "The hiatus and concourse," he says, "of open vowels [i.e., A, O , U] has something soft in it, indicating a not unpleasing negligence, as if the speaker were more anxious about his matter than about his words."
But consonants, especially those of a harsher nature, also are liable to jar with one another in the connection of words, such as "S" at the end of a word with "X" at the commencement of the following, and the hissing is still more unpleasant if two of these consonants clash together, as Ars studiorum.
Quintiliani verba latinè (interreti), wrote:33.Atque ut ordinem sequar, primum sunt quae imperitis quoque ad reprehensionem notabilia videntur, id est, quae commissis inter se verbis duobus ex ultima [fine] prioris ac prima sequentis syllaba deforme aliquod nomen efficiunt. tum vocalium concursus: quod cum accidit, hiat et intersistit et quasi laborat oratio. Pessime longae, quae easdem inter se litteras committunt, sonabunt; praecipuus tamen erit hiatus earum quae cavo aut patulo maxime ore efferuntur.
34. E planior littera est, i angustior, ideoque obscurius in his vitium. Minus peccabit qui longis breves subiciet, et adhuc qui praeponet longae brevem. Minima est in duabus brevibus offensio. Atque cum aliae subiunguntur aliis, proinde asperiores aut leviores erunt prout oris habitu simili aut diverso pronuntiabuntur.
35. Non tamen id ut crimen ingens expavescendum est, ac nescio neglegentia in hoc an sollicitudo sit peior. Inhibeat enim necesse est hic Metus impetum dicendi et a potioribus avertat. Quare ut neglegentiae est pars hoc pati, ita humilitatis ubique perhorrescere, nimiosque non inmerito in hac cura putant omnis Isocraten secutos praecipueque Theopompum.
36. At Demosthenes et Cicero modice respexerunt ad hanc partem. Nam et coeuntes litterae, quae synaliphai dicuntur, etiam leviorem faciunt orationem quam si omnia verba suo fine cludantur, et nonnumquam hiulca etiam decent faciuntque ampliora quaedam, ut "pulchra oratione +acta oratio iactatae+", cum longae per se et velut opimae syllabae aliquid etiam medii temporis inter vocales quasi intersistatur adsumunt.
37. Qua de re utar Ciceronis potissimum verbis. "Habet" inquit "ille tamquam hiatus et concursus vocalium molle quiddam et quod indicet non ingratam neglegentiam de re hominis magis quam de verbis laborantis". Ceterum consonantes quoque, earumque praecipue quae sunt asperiores, in commissura verborum rixantur, ut s ultima cum x proxima, quarum tristior etiam si binae collidantur stridor est, ut "ars studiorum".
I'm writing in Latin hoping for correction, and not because I'm confident in how I express myself. Latinè scribo ut ab omnibus corrigar, non quod confidenter me exprimam.
