Pronunciation of elision, etc.

Latin Learning Latin
1

Hi,

Not happy with the title of my thread but I was trying to read some poems by Catullus and I started wondering about how some of the things like elision were pronounced, or if that’s not known precisely, how people pronounce them when they’re trying to preserve the metre. The simplest case for me seems to be when you have a short vowel at the end of a word, as in

I.4 me?s esse aliquid put?re nūg?s

Here I figure that this would be read as if it were …ess’ aliquid… Does the same thing occur when the vowels are the same? For example, with

I.2 ?rid? modo pūmice expolītum libellum

would that be read as …pūmic’ expolītum… and not …pūmicēxpolītum…? This is probably not the best example because the resulting syllable scans long either way, but could you have something like rēge et amīc? scan long long short…?

Now when the short vowel is followed by -m, does the following vowel become nasalized to preserve the -m or is it lost completely? For example, with

I.5 iam tum cum ausus es ūnus Ītal?rum

which I guess would be read as if it were …c’ ausus…, would that au have been nasalized?

Finally when a word ends in a long vowel and the next word starts off with a short one, I’m guessing the initial vowel is dropped. So something like

I.8 qu?rē habē tibi quicquid h?c libellī

would be read as qu?rē 'bē…, right? Or is some form of diphthong formed, or some other possibility I’m not thinking of?

I haven’t come across any examples of long vowel + long vowel, so I’m wondering whether these occur, and if they do, which one wins out, if either?

Also, I guess much of the above also depends on whether my scansion of the poem is correct, so if I made any mistakes there, I’d be glad to find out.

Thanks

2

Yes, even the same vowel.

Your essential scansion of the CUM is correct; however, the qualities of the “dropped” vowel are not dropped entirely; they remain in the sound of the combined vowel, especially nasalization — this is subtle, but important.

The final vowel is preferentially dropped — prodelision (the initial vowel dropped) is much less common. So it would be closer to “quar’ habe”

Long vowel on long vowel was deliberately avoided, but essentially the same rules apply.

3

Here is how Pharr describes the pronunciation of elision:

“Elision is not a total omission, but rather a light and hurried half-pronunciation, somewhat similar to grace notes in music.”

4

Thanks.

Does the resulting syllable then scan short?

I realized after I posted that there seemed to be a pretty vigorous debate about whether the elided vowel is completely omitted or not – I assumed it was but I’m not sure why seeing as with the modern languages I’m familiar with, both seem possible (although none of them have quantitative metres so I don’t know if that affects anything).

5

Go with your Italian instincts — if you have any, that is. And yes, short.