Amadeus wrote:Ok, so I've finished Lingua Latina, part I. What I'm trying to do now is to go over it all again in order to refresh my memory. One way is by self-recording (which I cannot do all the time because my CDs won't play in my stereo system

, even though they are uncompressed wav files) and the other is by typing it in my PC. Well, I've combe back to chapter nine and there's this odd verb ēsse (to eat). Why do I say it's odd? Because, I thought all vowels were long if they came before two consonants, this case "ss". So, why the macron?
Ok...I'm going to take a stab at this.
There is a difference between a syllable which is long because it contains a long vowel or dipthong (long by nature) and a syllable that is long because the vowel is followed by more than one consonant or an "x" (long by position). Hence in the Latin verb "to be,"
esse, the penultimate "e" is a short vowel (short by nature) yet the syllable in which it is contained is long by position (because of the "ss") and thus treated for reasons of stress and accentuation as long. In the Latin verb "to eat,"
esse (forgive me for I don't know how to make a macron over the first "e" on here...I know that doesn't help lessen the confusion

), the penultimate syllable contains both the long vowel "e" (long by nature) as well as being a syllable that is long by position.
The macron, in instructional texts, simply is used to demonstrate vowel quantity, and is most useful discerning between Latin words like "to be" and "to eat" and as a great help with pronunciation. Without the macrons, you will only have context as a guide, and be as lost as trying to make sense of my post.
As regards pronunciation, both words (
esse, "to be," and
esse, "to eat") are stressed the same way...on the penultimate syllable, since regardless of the vowel quantity, both words contain a penultimate syllable which is long by position. Yet "to be" is pronounced quickly, with the majority of the time in pronunciation being spent on the "ss" and that first "e" sounding like the "e" in "pet." "To eat" is pronounced with an almost equal time spent on the initial "e" and the "ss," with the initial "e" sounding like the "a" in "cake."
Sorry if this is lengthy or convoluted...and, if anyone has a hint or two on how to make the macrons, I'd be much obliged.
Chris