Prosody and syllable stress

Latin Learning Latin
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Those recordings aren’t online, as far as I know. Earlier Joyce recording and Mrs Campbell reading Joyce echo late-Victorian recitative style (sort of Beerbohm Tree style). It’s a long time ago but they seem to stick in my mind. However, my memory could be playing tricks, or I could be just exaggerating…Back to Latin, sorry.
Have a good weekend
Adrianus

By the way, (so as not to mislead) the other speech signs the grammarians talk about include the fullstop (.), comma (,), colon (:), semicolon (;), hyphen (-), apostrophe, diastole, and the dasia (|- but as one character with no space between) and means ‘aspirate’ or ‘put rough breathing here’ (as in “the 'appy camper” or “the |-appy camper”, I think). There’s also the psile (a horizontally-flipped dasia), which I think means a superfluous ‘h’ (“the hartful dodger” or “the -|hartful dodger”, I think). Punctuation is very significant, of course, for the way a sentence is spoken, and, when you look at some older texts, you can love the writer for their careful use of punctuation. Nowadays, we don’t read out loud much to ourselves (but as a learner I try to all the time), and I know you appreciate that, even as an adult, reading to each other is wonderful. If you look back at posts, you’ll see I’m nuts about commas, in particular. That’s partly because I’ve always liked punctuation, and largely because of its value to the expressiveness of screenreader voice technology. The early grammarians’ appreciation for punctuation has great relevance for the way we might write today for the future. However, it’s minor, isn’t it, to getting meaning across,—you wouldn’t want to complain about not using ‘correct’ punctuation (outside of a learning context).

PS. Quintilian’s double grave probably refers to a word ending with the last two syllables depressed rather than a “double low”, as I thought previously. Such I think is ‘fuèrunt’ = ‘fuèrùnt’. (You don’t mark the second grave, so it doesn’t break the rule of only one accent on a word.)
PPS. I finished searching early grammarians for accented ablative-‘â’. The only evidence is with an enclitic, occasionally in verse, and in questioning at the end of a sentence. (Most may have thought it a silly effort, anyway.) Now to search for when it first appeared in literature, and why the confusion arose about circumflex = macron (probably, just to avoid confusing a macron with a tilde ~, or because the macron had come to mean “add an ‘n’ or ‘m’” in medieval MSS).

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Adrianus:

Thank you for the survey of diacritical markings.

This whole matter of pitch accent has become extremely interesting to me. I received my copy of Allen’s Vox Latina yesterday, I’ll compare his statements and exempla with Lord’s.

“Unpredictable” is good. I was going to use “chaotic” but it seemed too strong.

It might be best to preface any discussion of this subject with a rubric, something like “Lasciate ogni speranza, voi che intrate” or “Qui addit scientiam addit et laborem”. :slight_smile:

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Haha, great quotes.

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Cantator Luce care, et omnes
I want to share these thoughts with you and pose a question.
I’ve finished a first rapid print survey of the macon-circumflex issue, and have a lot more evidence to look at. I want to refine my thinking about this to say that, while it is the case that the macron-circumflex confusion existed at the end of the seventeenth century, a significant change in practice (in England, at least) in the 2nd and 3rd decades of the seventeenth century contributed to this. Timewise this seems to anchor the issue within the grammarians’ debate: practice versus theory, and whether Latin teaching had lost its direction and the language become corrupted. Obviously, I would like to spin this to argue that this is NOT a coincidence (that accenting provides an index about the relative importance of speech versus reading and this is relevant to the debate), and so grab some broadsheet headlines. I think it very significant for the living-language debate today. You have a huge body of writings and scholarship intent on the preservation and restoration of the collective Latin voice, and the early-modern period is vitally part of that. There is so much evidence from that period about how Latin was spoken then, and it’s beautiful evidence for creative expressiveness (what the rules are and how to creatively bend them in speech). Isn’t that valuable for today’s Latin? Seeing things in narrow terms (‘I’m only interested in the early Romans’ and “those words aren’t on my list”), can result in throwing out the baby with the bathwater. I’ve spoken to hard-working teachers with a syllabus to deliver, who feel obliged to take the narrow stance to get the job done. It’s completely understandable. Is it a shame? What do you think?
Adrianus

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I’d like to see what you’ve gathered, Adriane, most certainly, and what you have written up.

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All right, Luce, I’m going outside now; I might be gone some time.
Adrianus

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I’m doing some reading in historical phonology and morphology now, thanks to your investigations. Jozsef Herman’s “Vulgar Latin” is especially absorbing, and it definitely bears on the topics you’ve presented here. Paden’s research in his “Old Occitan” is also intriguing.

Yes, it is a shame. We are discovering so much about Latin these days, but it will likely take another decade before the new knowledge filters down into the classroom. Alas, teachers, like musicians, are notoriously conservative about changing their hard-won habits and abilities. And if they’re working from prescribed curricula, give 'em another ten years. :wink:

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Sorry for not responding for a while. I’ve been scribbling, and there’s just too much to write. In the meantime, here is a recording from Corderius’s Cato (English edition of 1585) that illustrates rhetorical accenting:
http://www.adrianmallonmultimedia.com/latin/adrianus.mov
You may have to wait a while for it to load (5MB filesize). Have a listen and let me know what you think. I’d be very grateful for any reaction, good or bad. The recording talks about different tracks, but there’s only one text track at the minute. I’m having great difficulty laying a text track that contains macrons and tilde-accented vowels.
It’s interesting how things are going, because I’ve been obliged to read schoolbooks that I thought might be very boring, but, in fact, turn out just the opposite.
Adrianus

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I just wanted to add some principles about accenting that might be testable. (1) An ultimate grave accent can indicate the sole accented syllable in a word. We might describe it better as a de-stress. This comes about by the rest of the word remaining flat. The otherwise-stressed ultimate or penultimate syllable still appears to retain accenting but that is the result of its length (usually long, by nature or position) and timing, not because of a pitch or volume change on it. (This is to distinguish ‘pône, pônè, ponè, pôné and poné’, and to say that ‘pônè’ isn’t concealed in ‘ponè’, nor ‘pôné’ in ‘poné’!) (2) An ultimate circumflected syllable also can represent the sole accented syllable in a word. This implies that previous syllables are flat (any stress on them is apparent and the result of syllable length and timing, not pitch or volume). This ceases to be the case later in the 17th century. (3) The special rules of word position in a sentence, and how they affect emphasis, carry into voice emphasis. For example, a word placed in the final position in a sentence to emphasize it might be expected to receive a pitch emphasis. That could explain why the early grammarians say ‘poné’ at the end of the sentence but ‘ponè’ otherwise (both of which differentiating the adverb from ‘pône’ the imperative verb).
Adrianus

Addendum (4 Oct 2006). Oh Dear! No reaction to the recording in four days. That could mean (1) it can’t be accessed, or (2) it can be accessed, but the reaction to it is one of such disapproval that it’s beneath comment, or (3) something else. I’d would very much appreciate a comment, please, no matter how disapproving. Thanks.

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Luce care et omnes,
I found today this reference to ‘pax’. It bears on a point way back in the discussion with Lucus about whether nominative ‘pax’ has a long ‘a’ by nature (and has a circumflex), or was long by position (and gets an acute, not a circumflex). It’s from a ninth-tenth century teaching copy of Donatus’s Ars Grammatica (a fragment missing in Hagen’s supplementum to Keil). I thought it was interesting that pax could be idiomatically used as an adverb, and that the adverbial use is distinguished by an ‘a’ long by nature (but not the noun).

  • Et est sensus: ergo quia toni sunt tres, acutus gravis circumflexus, monosyllabas quae correptam id est brevem vocalem habebunt acuto pronuntiabimus, id est dicemus. Pax non est hic, id est in hoc loco, nomen sed adverbium comicum et significat ‘statim’ vel ut quidam volunt ‘tantummodo’. Pax quando ‘pacem’ significat nomen est et longam habet ‘a’ quia ‘x’ littera quae pro duobus consonantibus ponitur facit illus longum. Quando vero adverbium est, sicut in hoc loco, corripitur ‘a’ et significat ‘statim’; verbo gratia “Pax veniet rex cum pace", id est statim. [Petersen (1947:139,140)].

Petersen Elder, John (1947), “The Missing Portions of the Commentum Einsidlense on Donatus’s Ars Grammatica", Harvard Studies in Classical Philology, Vol.56, pp.129-160
Adrianus

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I listened to it just now. It’s interesting, I found it very similar to what I’ve already been doing. I disagree with the comments re: specific pitching (I think it’s more arbitrary than fixed, depending on the expression of course), but your reading had motion and and a clear melodic curve, something I try to bring out in my own reading (sed ex cathaedra).

Maybe those 16th/17th century grammarians really had begun to model Latin pronunciation after modern Italian and classical Greek ? Regardless, your approach has the virtue of liveliness in the recitation.

Do the sources in Keil offer any annotated examples of Latin poetry ?

Btw, your voice is excellent for recording, please consider doing more.

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Many thanks, Cantator, for listening to the recording and responding. I’m encouraged that what I did was listenable, because I had hoped to do more.

You disagree with my comments, OK, but I don’t intend to suggest that the accenting is fixed. Possibly, I have expressed myself badly. Rhetorical accenting does vary in many ways, depending on word type and the form of expression, but in many ways, also, it conforms to set practices (although practice itself varies between periods and groups, and has an inherent latitude). I have lots of examples of that. I think that I can demonstrate (eventually) that the accenting is not arbitrary, even if it can be variable. The little difficulty is such practice can only be taught by example, rather than by rule (hence the disagreements in the period about teaching methods between scholastics and grammarians versus advocates of immersive and exemplar teaching, --to caricature the situation). So I’m pleased that you give me someone to try to convince.

I’m coming to feel, too, --as I read the source materials and consider the debates in the history of ideas – that behind the 16th-17th century changes in accenting is a distancing between Text and the Word-as-spoken (within which once the renaissance humanist had sought knowledge through the personal to the universal, --all backed up with a divine guarantee) and an adjustment in approach to the Text more as a standardized social artefact connecting to the Idea (with a little bit of a detour through ‘the Word as a window onto the Material’). Of course, the simpler approach is to accept that things just change, and that’s it. But it’s nice to wonder. :wink:

Keil contains about 6000 pages in eight volumes (Supplementum Vol.8 by Hagen) and contains many, many verse examples with comments by the early grammarians, usually constituting the second part of their books on Prosody (‘Tempus’ following on from ‘Accentus’.) Usually, the examples are single lines only (but many of them), extracted to illustrate a grammatical point (a departure from a rule, say) or a metrical point (within Prosodiâ).
Again thanks,
Adrianus.

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Okay, I think we’re in more agreement here again. This is very similar to many musical practices.

Keil …contains many, many verse examples with comments by the early grammarians, usually constituting the second part of their books on Prosody (‘Tempus’ following on from ‘Accentus’.) Usually, the examples are single lines only (but many of them), extracted to illustrate a grammatical point (a departure from a rule, say) or a metrical point (within Prosodiâ).

These examples are notated with diacritical signs ? If so, could you reproduce some here, or perhaps record some lines ?

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<?xml version="1.0"?>
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Apologies for my absense; exams were quite intense and very unpleasant.

Your recording shows great diligence and effort, Adriane! I think that you, Cantator, and I should get on Skype this weekend and discuss these matters voce ad aurem.

As to pax the adverb, that’s delightful! It reminds me a bit of “piano” in Italian. Pax with short ‘a’ sounds like other Latin adverbs like euax and tumtaxtumtax.

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I’d very much like to attempt the Skype conference (it’s novel to me). What about Sunday, 8th October,–the day after tomorrow? You say a time. Consider that I’m in Ireland, so I think I’m five hours later in the day than you, Luce (hope your exams went well), and later still for you, Cantator, possibly. I see I made a mistake above about ‘pax’ and the quote, but the funny thing is the author is still saying that the ‘a’ in the nominative is only long by position (since you can’t have a long vowel before two consonants, as ‘x’ is read), which is why Lily says it should have an acute, and not a circumflex. I don’t think the early grammarians (and later Lily) were referring to an obscure adverbial ‘pax’ but to ‘pax’ = ‘peace’. It just goes to show you can quibble for ever over the details.
Adrianus

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Ah, a fantastic Irishman! much as I suspected from hearing your recording. Among the best of English speakers. When I visited Dublin there was a church I went to which had a video playing about the church’s history, and it was told to me by the director there, “The narrator of this recording is Irish, so naturally he speaks in perfect English.” I hold this very dearly to be true, and the quality of your recording, Adriane, demonstrates this clearly.

Sunday will be wonderful. Let us hope that Cantator as well will be able to join us. As for a time, let us set 1:00 PM Eastern Time (Cantator’s is the same time zone), that is 7:00 PM by you, unless that is inconvenient. I will be available for the whole day. My email is below; you’re welcome to contact me directly.

Thank you for the well wishes on the exams. Most of them went well, but two years of high school chemistry apparently have not been enough to conquer the college version.

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Thanks, Luce, but they obviously speak better Latin in Pennsylvania. Sunday it is.

Here are some few examples (showing sensible variations for you, Cantator) from loads I was talking about of speech accenting. Udell (1568), not-so-upright head of Eton and, finally, Westminister, is teaching on Terence:

  • intereáloci, as it were one worde diatò hyphen, id est persubunionem. Subunio, is a marke, that the Greekes use whan two sundry dicions, or vocables are to be ioyned into one, And so readeth Donate here intereáloci. Vt pronuncietur acuta antepenultima. Duae, inquiens, partes orationis cum coniunctae vnam fecerint, mutant accentum. Intereà loci ergo, id est interea, in the meanwhile, in the meane time or place.
    Hoc agite amabó, I pray you take heede to this.
    Amabò adiuta me, I pray you helpe me.
    Amabò, Is an adverbe or prainge, and is the same thyng that we say in englyshe, as ever I shall loue you, or as euer I shal dooe you good tourne, or pleasure, &c. and it hath the secounde syllable longe, Amâbo and not short amabo, as some pronounce it.
    Accessi intrô, I came in.
    I iam nunc intró, euen now go thy wayes in.
    Abi intrò, ibi me opperire, Get the in, and tary for me there till I come.
    Monstra deûm refero, I make relacion vnto you of suche things, as the goddes haue shewed vnto me.
    [nice counterpoint between acute and circumflex:] Quantó diutius abest, tantô magis desidero f eum. The longer it is sithe he hath been away so much more am I desirous to se him.

I’ll record these and other Udell examples, and later put on Corderius examples. In the meantime, I need to get Fraenckel’s Iktus und Akzent, because, from the reviews, it appears to have loads of evidence for such emphatic bendings and Latin oxytones. But I can’t read German, sadly. Nevertheless, there may be things that can be gleaned.
Adrianus.

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I’d like to join the conventiculum. All of this is very interesting, especially how it seems to have been neglected in recent years (which does leave me somewhat suspiscious of its veracity).

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Hi Hu,
You’re right to be cautious. I find it extraordinary myself, especially to claim that a lot of the evidence has been concealed by a confusion (or change of direction) of the seventeenth century. But I’m looking at all these materials, and they read (in parts) like sound recordings. I know that much of the accenting only reveals what’s often intuitive about speech, but what’s wonderful is the notion of awakening voices, whatever little new might be learned about intonation. Personally, I think there is a lot to be learned, and not just about historical variation but about commonalities; because the rhetorical accenting acts like a shifting lens upon general grammatical accenting and speech patterns. Many of the texts will be common to various european countries, with just the vernacular commentaries (if any) translated into the respective languages, but there must be lots of additional textbooks not published in England, but using similar rhetorical accenting in France, Spain, the Netherlands, Italy, and other European countries, I imagine. I don’t think England was as big a book-publishing centre as other European countries in the sixteenth century. And, by the way, there are a number of published teaching books which accent, not just for rhetorical purposes, but for basic-pronunciation teaching purposes.
Adrianus