Dear Textkitters
I was going through the exercises of RA again this morning, but I stumbled on the exercises about the “Syllabae acutae”.
My question is concerning longer words; the description says:
In plerisque vocabulis longioribus acuta est syllaba paenultima; sin paenultima in vocalem brevem desinit, syllaba antepaenultima est acuta.
this means as far as I understand that the stress in longer words is on the antepenultimate (3rd last) syllable if not the penultimate is long, right?
In the answer key it says the following:
Au-gús-tus
trī-gín-ta
pri-ús-quam
iu-vén-tūs
re-fér-re
du-cén-ti
I would, following the rule, put the stress on the first (antepenultimate), but the answer key puts them in the penultimate. But I do not understand this since they are not long?
How can this be? Opem me ferte, quaeso!
The important word here is desinit: A syllable is short only if it ends (!) in a short vowel, which the syllables in the words you have listed do not (see below).
If a syllable contains a long vowel, a diphthong, or ends in a consonant - even if the vowel in the syllable is short - it (the syllable, not the vowel!) is long. The crucial thing is to not confuse the length of the syllable with the length of the vowel.
The paenultima gus in Au-gús-tus contains a short vowel, but it does not end (!) in a short vowel. It is closed by the s following the vowel and thus is long and therefore stressed.
In iu-vén-tus it is the same thing: The e is short, but the paenultima is still long because it is closed by the n, and so it is stressed.
The same is true for all the words you listed.
To revise the topics of syllable division and long and short syllables, have a look at the Grammatica Latina part of Cap. XXXIV in FR, where Ørberg writes:
Syllaba brevis est quae in vocalem brevem desinit; quae desinit in vocalem longam aut in diphthongum aut in consonantem syllaba longa est.
Thank you so much for this, esp. for the clarification the difference between long syllable and vowel!
You’re welcome! I’m glad if the explanation was helpful.
If you’re interested in learning more about this, you might want to check out Wilfried Stroh’s lectures - held in excellent Latin - on Latin pronunciation, especially starting with schola IX (de syllabis I):
http://stroh.userweb.mwn.de/scholae/vl_pronuntiatio_wise10-11/vl_pronuntiatio_wise10-11.html
Johan Winge has written an interesting article about the topic of reading verse, in which he lays out the basics of syllable division, length, stress, and so on. It includes audio examples:
http://alatius.com/latin/verse.html