Use of breves

[Siegfried Zaytsev]

Why in this dictionary article

Charlton T. Lewis, Charles Short, A Latin Dictionary, Cŏrinna

the letter 'o' is marked with a breve but letters 'i' and 'a' are not?

It's a bit confusing. It seems inconsistent to me: either use the breve for all short vowels or do not use it at all.

 

[Bitmap]

Because the short syllable in the a is clear and self-explanatory and the short syllable in the i is irrelevant.

 

[Quasus]

Strictly speaking, old-style dictionaries are concerned with the quantity of syllables rather than with vowel length and use macrons and breves accordingly. LS hic: http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=hic&fromdoc=Perseus:text:1999.04.0059 It has a macron in spite of the fact that the vowel is short. The syllable, however, is always long due to the gemination of c in front of a vowel.

If the length of a syllable can be inferred, there is no need to explicitly mark it. Evidently, LS includes standard endings in this category.

There's no way to tell from this dictionary whether it's Corĭnna or Corīnna. Moreover, as the word is Greek, the length of the vowel is most likely unknown.

 

[Bitmap]

Strictly speaking, old-style dictionaries are concerned with the quantity of syllables rather than with vowel length and use macrons and breves accordingly. LS hic: http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=hic&fromdoc=Perseus:text:1999.04.0059 It has a macron in spite of the fact that the vowel is short. The syllable, however, is always long due to the gemination of c in front of a vowel.

With Lewis & Short, at least the online version, you never really know. They often assign breves and macrons wrongly – sometimes the online version does so due to typing or scanning mistakes, but sometimes it just seems like they have no real idea what they are writing about ... also with regard to quantity.

If the length of a syllable can be inferred, there is no need to explicitly mark it.

Well, I mean ... if that's the case, you could question why a word that only ever appears in poetry and that has a Greek transcription in the dictionary entry would even require a brevis on the o in the first place
I mean, I agree with you, but I think it's true that there is not a lot of consistency in the practice of using breves and macrons ... but I also don't think there has to be. My impression is that most dictionaries, especially the older ones, often only used those diacritic marks (especially breves) when they expected most users of the dictionary to intuitively get the length wrong and/or when it makes a difference in meaning. For example, most Germans would pronounce malus (in the meaning of 'bad') with a long a. L&S thankfully clarifies that:

Charlton T. Lewis, Charles Short, A Latin Dictionary, mălus

 

[Laurentius]

I think L&S often doesn't mark vowels that are long by position and it doesn't on the last letter because it's a normal first declension ending so there is no need.

 

[Quasus]

I think L&S often doesn't mark vowels that are long by position

On a regular basis. Just take a glance at the word list on the left. Open syllables are consistently marked unless it's a standard ending, closed syllables are consistently unmarked.

 

[Siegfried Zaytsev]

Thank you for all your answers! (Although some of them were a bit too technical for me.) I might have to get back to this topic once I have more advanced knowledge of Latin.

 

[meisenimverbis]

As Quasus said, the word is from Greek origin, as many in Latin. It's possible to be immediately sure about the length of a Greek word when the vowel is e or o, because there are different characters for these letters in Greek for when they are short or long. But with a, i and y someone from ancient times must have left notes, or used in poetry so it can be guessed.

For instance, Socrates has long o and long e, marked by the vowels used in Greek, and a short a, which we'll only know checking it up (or having internalized how to correctly say it in Latin). Wiktionary usually is an easy quick tool to check this up: Socrates#Latin

 

[Gregorius Textor]

LS hic: http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=hic&fromdoc=Perseus:text:1999.04.0059 It has a macron in spite of the fact that the vowel is short. The syllable, however, is always long due to the gemination of c in front of a vowel.

What does this mean? Doesn't gemination mean doubling ("twinning") of the consonant, for example, hicc? And doesn't the c in hic come after (behind), rather than in front of, the vowel?

 

[Quasus]

It is geminated before the vowel starting the next word:
hic liber /hik.li.ber/
hic annus /hik.kan.nus/
Either way, the syllable is heavy and hence may be marked by a macron in old dictionaries. However, it isn't homonymous with hīc /hi:k/ "here".

The same happens with hoc nom./acc. n. sg.: hoc est /hok.kest/.

The ablative is regular: hōc /ho:k/

This is discussed e. g. in Vox Latina.

 

[Gregorius Textor]

It is geminated before the vowel starting the next word:
hic liber /hik.li.ber/
hic annus /hik.kan.nus/
Either way, the syllable is heavy and hence may be marked by a macron in old dictionaries. However, it isn't homonymous with hīc /hi:k/ "here".

The same happens with hoc nom./acc. n. sg.: hoc est /hok.kest/.

The ablative is regular: hōc /ho:k/

This is discussed e. g. in Vox Latina.

Well, that's interesting. I was aware of such gemination when one word ends in a consonant and the next word begins with a consonant in poetry, and I suspected maybe it happened in prose too. So if I understand you correctly, the macron in the dictionary tells us that for this word, hic, the gemination occurs also when the next word begins with a vowel. And I guess there is no way of telling from the dictionary whether the vowel itself is long or short.

 

[Glabrigausapes]

The real question:
Boxers or breves?

 

[Bitmap]

Boxers.

 

[Bitmap]

So if I understand you correctly, the macron in the dictionary tells us that for this word, hic, the gemination occurs also when the next word begins with a vowel. And I guess there is no way of telling from the dictionary whether the vowel itself is long or short.

The gemination only occurs when the next word starts in a vowel.

I actually don't think it's a useful practice for a dictionary to give the i a macron, just because the syllable is heavy in poetry (and even there, it sometimes is short). Nobody would ever get the idea of marking the first e in perspirare long, either.

 

[Quasus]

And I guess there is no way of telling from the dictionary whether the vowel itself is long or short.

The recent Gaffiot accessible on https://logeion.uchicago.edu/ seems quite accurate. Although its users are to figure out on their own that the first syllable of măjŏr is heavy.

Nobody would ever get the idea of marking the first e in perspirare long, either.

Oh yes, they would! Here's the old practice at its finest: https://books.google.com/books?id=_5hEAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA540

 

[Bitmap]

Oh yes, they would! Here's the old practice at its finest:

That makes me sad.

 

[Gregorius Textor]

Thank you for all your answers! (Although some of them were a bit too technical for me.) I might have to get back to this topic once I have more advanced knowledge of Latin.

The same here. For the time being, at least, this discussion is over my head. Maybe I will understand it better some day, but for now, I will unwatch. Thanks for everyone's efforts.