Scansion, Ictus, and Accent

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Lucus Eques
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Scansion, Ictus, and Accent

Post by Lucus Eques »

Lucus Eques sodalibus omnibus s.d.p.

So something's really starting to piss me off. I'm taking a class in Latin literature, and I have an assigned Latin tutor for the course (the tutoring sessions are infinitely more interesting than the class, but, as we say in Italy, meno male, could be worse). When I was first reading lines of Virgil's first Eclogue for my tutor, practicing the scansion outloud, and in the restored pronunciation (which my tutor by miraculous chance also prefers), I was naturally giving proper length to the syllables long and short; but I was also careful to include the pitch accent, which is of course separated in many cases from the stricter periodicities of the dactyls and spondees — this, in my opinion, is the essence of the beauty of Latin, and Greek poetry, that the stressed and long and accented syllables are not each the same, but flow one over the other, like ball bearings, or like the planets against the fixed constellations, the music of the spheres.

My interpretation, however, seems to be somewhat lost on my fellow Italians. The first line of the Eclogue I pronounced as follows, using the ' ´ ' to indicate the accent of musical pitch, and underlining the long syllables:

tyre, pátulae récubans sub tégmine fági

which is in fact where the natural word accents fall. I'd like to reiterate that this lack of uniformity between the pitch accents and the long syllables is, secundum me, what gives Latin and especially its poetry an inherent pulchritude unmatchable outside of Greek and English (though the latter is rarely attempted). But Italians, it seems, much like the English or Germans or Americans or anyone else with an often voluntary misunderstanding of Latin's delicate yet formidable beauty, just don't get it. This strikes me as exceptionally odd, for Italian is a rare language which possesses distinct lengths in vowels, most of which are usually identical to those corresponding to their Latin cognates, unlike Spanish, for instance, which has syllables all short — however, this concept is never taught to Italians, or so it would seem when my Greek and Latin professors say that "the concept of vowel length is lost to our modern languages," and how ridiculous that! when the very words they use are full of vowels long and short, that if pronounced improperly immediately reveal the mark of the foreigner. Indeed, I believe them to be almost completely ignorant of this concept in their language (excepting perhaps my Latin tutor). In any case, upon pronouncing the word "pátulae," my tutor corrected me: "patuláe", leaving me somewhat dumbstruck. Indeed, an Italian would pronounce the line thus:

tyre, patuláe recubáns sub tégmine fági

unnaturally, in short, in order to demonstrate the emphasis of the long syllables, and to be more specific, the first syllables of every foot. Both my tutor and my professor in class have described this as the "ictus," the "hit," where the accent falls.

Is this really how the Romans intended to pronounce their poetry? in this ungainly placement, to paraphrase the joke, of the wrong emphasis on the wrong syllable? I can't imagine it would be so. Firstly, it seems dreadfully unnecessary; Latin poetry is based on syllable length alone, and rarely if every puts much importance on the actual word accents. And secondly, never is poetry written, to my knowledge, if we may use English as an example — or rather, perhaps I should emphasize "good" poetry — rarely if ever is English poetry written where the natural word accents (which are essential to our iambic pentameters) are deliberately disobeyed simply to fit the meter. It's sloppy. When we read Shakespeare, numerous accents seem variable or awkwark when scanned, but this is on account of the common pronunciations of the time, which have since changed and become fixed. A good contemporary example is the word "romance," which properly was originally pronounced on the ultimate syllable: "románce." However, the modern pronunciation accepts two placements of the accent, both the former, and also "rómance," as much as I dispise the latter. Nevertheless, it is possible that the latter will supercede the former in generations to come. And then those generations will scratch their heads to see the word scanned "románce."

In any case, if anyone could help clarify this for me, I'd much appreciate it.

Valete atque ualete!
Florentiae a.d. VI kal. Nou. anno MMV°.
LV·EQ
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Lucus Eques
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Post by Lucus Eques »

Is there really no one who can help me with this?
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Post by benissimus »

Although this is a post from the Homeric board, I think it may have some relevance to Latin: viewtopic.php?p=32286 We seem to have more phonology experts studying Greek, so you might want to check with them. And what is this pitch accent you speak of? "Supercede", I keep making that typo too! :wink:
Last edited by benissimus on Mon Oct 31, 2005 1:42 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by nostos »

If I'm not mistaken, your tutor places the accent on the long syllable to emphasise that the syllable is long, and this irks you (it would piss me off too).

But nothing but inference can be made, that because all of the Romance languages are pronounced in such a way, therefore the language of Rome also had to be pronounced as similarly as possible, placing accents of the usually shortened romance word in the same place on the full Latin one: dif-í-cil (Sp), diff-í-cile (It.), hence Latin's diff-í-cilis, e (three diff. 'c's too!). And with enough of these words, you see that it's a pattern with only the long Latin penult making a difference (or two consonant after etc) in where the accent goes.

I'm saying that the rules make sense, but that no one can be absolutely certain of them, and where to place the pitch accent is just something that we've internalised (perhaps wrongly, although this is unlikely). Notice also that the restored classical pronunciation has no sounds not common between languages (or even to English for that matter). So in the end it's all a matter of guessing - if the tutor places the accent on the lengthy syllable at the beginning of each foot, that may in fact be how it was.

That said, does the tutor pronounce Latin one way in reading poetry and another in speaking or reading prose? I don't think the Romans would have pronounced poetry so differently from prose; to change the pronunciation to make a point of the lengths of their vowels seems absurd. And I agree, this difference between pitch accent and syllable length - that the two are not usually the same - adds an extra dimension to the sound of Latin poetry (I've been exposed to some thus far, not much but some, unadapted poetry, which I read aloud and eventually I understood; as you know, I'm still very very far from hoping to be as fluent as you).

I realise I haven't really answered a thing. If you haven't yet, I'd buy the book 'vox latina' (Sidney Allen), Cambridge University Press so it should be easier to find now that you've crossed the pond. Then you'd have some grounding, I think, as to why Latin's restored pronunciation is as it is (he gives several theories but espouses one), and also perhaps why your tutor pronounces it as he does. I've only read the beginning but I thought it was really interesting, just not for someone who doesn't really know Latin yet so I'm waiting.

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Post by mraig »

I think you are right, and your tutor is wrong. (Although it is my understanding that what you are describing as 'pitch' is actually what we normally call 'stress'; accents in Latin are stress-based, in Greek pitch based.)

But it is a simple rule of Latin pronunciation that the accent (i.e. the stress) falls upon the penultimate syllable if it is long, and the antepenultimate syllable if the penultimate is short. That rule holds for poetry or prose. Latin hexameter poetry, however, is based on the difference between long and short syllables - that is, quantity. These two characteristics co-exist in the Latin language, stress and quantity, but they are not the same thing. The difference between "amica" (nominative singular) and "amica" (ablative singular) is not that the accent jumps to the end of the word (a-mi-CA!), but that the quantity of the final vowel is lengthened. In both cases, the accent is on the second syllable (a-MI-ca).

So in Latin poetry, there is a tension between accent and so-called 'ictus' - that is, between stress and quantity. This tension is purposefully created by poets in the beginning of the line, and resolved at the end of the line. Notice that in almost any line of Vergil, for the first three or four feet, the accent will not co-incide with the ictus, and for the last two or three, there will be harmony between them. This is a fundamental feature of hexameter poetry. By ungracefully hammering home the first syllable of every foot, the meter is demonstrated, but the beauty of the poetry is lost.

In fact, sometimes, the art of the poetry relies on the expectation of the resolution of accent and meter, but it not coming. Take Horace's famous line from "Ars Poetica" (139)

Parturient montes, nascetur ridiculus mus.

The fact that, in the last two feet, the meter is totally out of whack with the accent, and that the expectation of a heroic, Vergilian line end is not met, is a perfect mirror of the actual meaning of the line - the potentially noble and great descends into something totally discordant with expectation. If your instructor wanted you to pronounce that line "...nas-CE-tur RI-dic-u-LUS mus," none of what I just said would be apparant; it would just be another line of hexameter poetry, and Horace's clever monkeying with meter and accent would be lost.

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Post by Lucus Eques »

Haha! nice catching the "supercede." Typo as it was, Webster has vindicated me! :

http://webster.com/dictionary/supercede

Though as Americans, I guess we should stick to the reformed, re-Romanized spellings, which have superseded (haha! I used it in a sentence! :-P) the more archaic or Franckicized orthographies.

Thank you, Benissime; that link was very helpful.

As to your question, by "pitch accent," I mean the natural word accent, which in Italian is almost always identical anyway. There seems, however, a recent "monotonization" of words or accented syllables in accademic circles that is gaining a great deal of popularity in the country -- very interesting, and kind of cute, but unfortunate ultimately.

Te saluere iubeo, Nostos. I strongly disagree with the notion that the collective reason of the Romance languages must dictate on any strict terms the function of the Latin tongue. Your mentioning of Spanish is an excellent one; the language contains no long vowels, quite contrary to the Latin example from the start; it is for this reason that Latin "préndere" is unfortunately forced onto the ultimate syllable in Spanish, creating "prendér," making it dreadfully confusing when going from the Iberian tongue to either of the Italics.

The fact is that we can be absolutely certain because the Romans explained in perfect detail how their language was spoken. This is the reconstructed pronunciation. Your comment on "no sounds in common between languages" I fail to follow.

And yes, the pronunciation he uses is different in the poetry than from the prose; his prose pronunciation is virtually perfect (as perfect as any of us can be); the beautifully simple accent rules in Latin (which I dearly miss in these recently Hellenized days) are extremely easy to follow. That he, or any Italian should not follow them in the poetry is willed ignorance based on faulty teaching.

Thank you for the recommendation of Vox Latina. I intend to purchase it, as well as Vox Graeca, upon my return to the States this January. If I were to buy it while in Italy, I would either pay the exorbitant euro price, or pound sterling price, or pay for a very costly shipment from America to Florence. I opt for patience. :-)

Salue, mgraig. Your comment on "stress" I find puzzling. The Romans do not describe "stress" in the Germanic way to which we are accustomed, and in fact emphasize the pitch-accent musical nature of their language (very similar to Greek).

Your demonstration of Virgil's displacement and later harmonization of accent and quantity in each line is immensely interesting! Thank you, this will help further my arguments with the Italic folk in the future. And moreover, that is an essential key to appreciating the beauty of the poetry, as you well have demonstrated. Iterum gratias!
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Post by nostos »

salve Luce,

I should have placed a very fat ‘my conjecture is that…’ before the first three paragraphs; that was mostly something I came up with as I was writing.

I actually would like to know where to find all the sources for pronunciation. I’m in the dark, trusting dubious things that I’ve read here and there and filling in the gaping lacunae with things that I’ve thought of and seem logical to me at the time (see the above three paragraphs!). When I’ve actually researched other things where I followed a similar block-headed procedure, I usually have found after the research that my impressions are nothing like they were when I was guessing, often (embarrassingly) quite opposite.

Does that make sense? I find that I rarely say what I mean these days.

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Post by mraig »

Lucus Eques wrote:
Salue, mgraig. Your comment on "stress" I find puzzling. The Romans do not describe "stress" in the Germanic way to which we are accustomed, and in fact emphasize the pitch-accent musical nature of their language (very similar to Greek).
I do not have Vox Latina or Vox Graeca with me, but it has always been my understanding that accent in Latin is stress-based, similar to English, and that the musical pitch accent you describe is only characteristic of Greek. The best reference I have handy for this is the Oxford Classical Dictionary, 3rd edition, under "pronunciation, Latin":

"As regards the nature of the accent, there are clear indications that in prehistoric and in late Latin it was manifested by stress, and it is unlikely that the intervening classical accent would have been of a different nature. Grammarians, following Greek models, tend to describe it in terms of musical pitch as in ancient Greek, but the detailed plagiarism of their descriptions and the very different placement rules in the two languages, as well as other internal and typological evidence in Latin, make this highly improbable. Admittedly stress is often accompanied by variation in pitch, but this does not make pitch the primary feature."

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Post by Lucus Eques »

Salue, Nostos,

As for pronunciation, if you like, I would be happy to make some recordings of "proper" Latin (which I put in quotations for I will ever have at least a little accent, in any language). You can give me a few lines or something that are puzzling and I'll record myself reading them. Sending them is an entirely different matter; do you have AIM?

Salue, mraig (do you have a Latinized name with a vocativable form? :-) ),

I draw your attention to the Roman Pronunciation of Latin:
PITCH.

But besides the length of the syllable, and the place and quality of the
accent, another matter claims attention.

In English all that is required is to know the place of the accent,
which is simply distinguished by greater stress of voice. This
peculiarity of our language makes it more difficult for us than for
other peoples to get the Latin accent, which is one of pitch.

In Latin the acute accent means that on the syllable thus accented you
raise the pitch; the grave indicates merely the lower tone; the
circumflex, that the voice is first raised, then depressed, on the same
syllable.
Which makes perfect sense. Italian accent is one of pitch, as is that of modern Greek. That Latin should somehow differ makes absolutely no sense. Stress is included, but it's often secondary.
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Post by nostos »

bone Luce, I am most honoured that you would take the time. sescentas gratias.

I wouldn't presume to tell you what to read; rather send me something, or part of something, that you feel is appropriate, something you esteem. I have no AIM, but you can send it to divagador@hotmail.com.

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