I’m (finally) starting to learn Latin after quite a long time studying Greek, and one of the aspects of learning a classical language from scratch again that I enjoy is being able to avoid slipping into bad pronunciation habits early on.
With this in mind, I’m curious about the pronunciations of perfects like habui. Is the “u” here a consonant, making sound like _w_aste, or is it a vowel, making a p_u_t sound?
Vox Latina is somewhat vague about the consonantal pronunciation of u in cases like this. I know that i was only pronounced as a consonant ([j]) word-initially and inter-vocalically, and I wonder if this is the case with u too, but I am leaning at the moment towards the former option (that it was pronounced [w] in these cases), as it seems to me to represent a cool kind of continuity with other perfects which use this consonant (e.g. ama_v_i)
I think if e.g. habui were scanned as two syllables this would be a good sign for this theory, but I have no idea how to figure this out without laboriously digging up a scanned example in a book somewhere featuring this kind of perfect.
Can anyone give me a hand with this pronunciation vexation?
The u in habui is a (short) vowel. The word has three syllables, as can be seen in the following line: “sed modo, quos habui, vacuos secedere in hortos” (Ov. Tr. 4.8.27). In fact, the u in the perfect forms of verbs like habēre, monēre, dolēre is always a vowel. See this line, again from Ovid: “me quoque, quod monui bene multa fideliter, odit;” (Ov. Her. 15.67).
Which textbook are you using? Textbooks usually distinguish between v and u, even if they don’t distinguish between consonantal and vocalic i.
Edit: I had accidently written ‘four’ instead of ‘three’. I corrected this mistake. Thanks, bedwere!
Thanks, that’s very helpful. A shame my hunch was wrong, but good to know.
I gather from your response that when texts distinguish typographically between u and v, this exhaustively maps the difference in pronunciation I was asking about - so every written instance of u (except perhaps in the environment qu) would be pronounced [ʊ], and every instance of v [w]. Is that correct?
Just one minor confusion with your response: habui would presumably have three syllables (u u -) rather than four, right? Or am I misunderstanding Latin meter in some way?
I like to use a few textbooks, but I rely on Dickey’s Learn Latin from the Romans (being a big fan of her book on Greek composition) and the German Orbis Romanus books. For pronunciation questions though I turn to Allen’s Vox Latina.
The digraphs remain unmapped in so far as they are written ‘qu’ as opposed to e.g. ‘qv’ (which would map them unambiguously but is rare practice).
Regarding said digraphs, “u” is consonantal as follows: “qu” always; “gu” in “nguV” (V=any vowel) as e.g. “sanguis” but not otherwise as e.g. “exiguus”; “su” in “suavis”, “suesco”, “suadeo”, and derivatives of these, as well as proper name “Suevi”.
Edit: replaced “suetus” with “suesco”; sharpened up rule for “gu”; removed “maybe more” because hopefully I got them all
Correct. In these digraphs, you can write ‘qv’, ‘gv’, ‘sv’ and it will not hurt you at all. That said, since I classified the cases of ‘u’ being consonantal above, you may find it unnecessary to do so in writing (as most editors don’t) as it should be straightforward to remember. Personally I would encourage writing (and pronouncing) with ‘v’ instead of ‘u’ where consonantal, as there are no rules here.
It does not occur to me that there exist any other such digraphs in Latin, except by occasional aberrant poetic practice. When I first learned this, I wondered whether “pu” was ever ‘pv’; I was told no; it was not until 2.5 years later that I came across what remains the only counter-example I have noticed from antiquity - “Iam ‘puerei uenere’ e postremum facito atque i” (Lucilius).
Is there any such rule for i. I am able to distinguish between the two, but it would be nice to have a nice rule set to give to my students as I will definitely do with this for u and v.