stress in verbs

[Anonymous]

Hello all.

I'm trying to teach myself Latin at the moment, but unlike in other languages, none of the dictionaries seem to mark the stressed syllable. I've seen lots of talk of penults etc, but I'd really appreciate it if somebody explained where the stress fell in the 4 principal parts of videō, vidēre, vīdī, vīsum. If I had that as some sort of exemplar I'd be a very happy chappy.

Thanks for your help people.

 

[Imber Ranae]

What text are you using? It's not a very good one if it doesn't explain this adequately. Accent is completely predictable in Latin and follows these very simple rules: (1) words of two syllables are always accented on the first syllable (in this case the penult). (2) words of more than two syllables are accented on the second from last syllable, or penult, if that syllable is long (either by vowel or position*), and on the third from last syllable, or antepenult, if the penult is a short syllable.

Thus, with accent bolded: videō, vidēre, vīdī, vīsum

The only exceptions are a few words where final vowels have been dropped, which are accented on the ultima (last syllable).


*I'm assuming you understand syllable length.

 

[Anonymous]

Thanks!

I'm piecing together whatever information I can from the internet instead of working from a single text (which I do appreciate might not be the best way to go about it).

I'd read a bit of the theory before, but I wanted to see it applied to see if the stress moved syllables; I see it does.

I'd spent hours trying to find the pronunciation of a simple verb online before discovering this forum, so you have no idea how grateful I am for your help!

 

[Matthaeus]

Also try the excellent learn-to-speak-Latin site http://latinum.mypodcast.com.

 

[Iynx]

Though I do not disagree with the substance of Mattheus' remarks here, I must take issue with his "completely" and "always". Apart from the exception he cites there are, as it seems to me, numerous other irregularities, even if one confines oneself to areas of general agreement. We might in illustration cite such words as Vergili (vocative of Vergilius), benefacit, calefacit, and venumdare, all of which are pronounced in violation of the usual rules.

If we allow ourselves to enter areas of controversy, there are still more exceptions (at least according to many). Consider: egomet, astronomia, theologia, and parietes.

None of this need trouble a beginner, it is true.

 

[Matthaeus]

I didn't realise I made so many remarks here...

 

[Chamaeleo]

I didn't realise I made so many remarks here...

LOL :lol:

We might in illustration cite such words as Vergili (vocative of Vergilius), benefacit, calefacit, and venumdare, all of which are pronounced in violation of the usual rules.

You might illustrate better!

Mark the long vowels in those word with apices or macrons, and indicate the stress with bolding or underlining. Share the knowledge; don't hoard it!

 

[Matthaeus]

LOL :lol: :lol:

 

[Quasus]

Mark the long vowels in those word with apices or macrons, and indicate the stress with bolding or underlining. Share the knowledge; don't hoard it!

I'd be much obliged, too. Perhaps a reference to a grammar?

 

[Imber Ranae]

Though I do not disagree with the substance of Mattheus' remarks here, I must take issue with his "completely" and "always". Apart from the exception he cites there are, as it seems to me, numerous other irregularities, even if one confines oneself to areas of general agreement. We might in illustration cite such words as Vergili (vocative of Vergilius), benefacit, calefacit, and venumdare, all of which are pronounced in violation of the usual rules.

If we allow ourselves to enter areas of controversy, there are still more exceptions (at least according to many). Consider: egomet, astronomia, theologia, and parietes.

None of this need trouble a beginner, it is true.

Sorry, I should not have so over-simplified. Other than addressing the wrong person, you are quite correct, of course.

2nd declension masculines in -ĭus have a vocative in -ī, but since it's actually a contraction of -ĭĕ, the accent manifests itself as if the word were not contracted. Hence vergílī rather than vérgĭlī. This is also true for the older contracted genitive -ī found in place of -ĭī.

Vēnumdăre "give for sale, sell", bĕnĕfăcit "do good to, benefit", călĕfăcit "heat, make warm" and other so-called "syntactic compounds" are accented as if they were separate words, hence: vḗnumdắre, bénĕfắcit, cắlĕfắcit (but the more common form of the word for "sell" is a full compound: vĕndo, vĕndĕre, like it's passive form vēneo, vēnīre "go for sale, be sold")

Ĕgomet is ĕgo + the reflexive enclitic particle -met. The enclitics in Latin, including -quĕ, -nĕ, -vĕ, -cĕ, -met, and -dum, are said to always shift the accent to the syllable immediately before the enclitic. Accordingly, it would be egómet. Some authorities dispute this, however, saying that this is only the case when that syllable is long, either by position (hŏmĭnísque) or by length of vowel (mĭsĕrṓque), or if the accent was originally on the antepenult, in which case it is has a double accent (mísĕrắque, flúmĭnắve). So I think égomet is still the more likely pronunciation, unless the 'o' is pronounced long, in which case it would be ĕgṓmet. It's usually short in poetry, but there's some uncertainty about prose (it may have been long when the word is especially emphasized).

I suppose that words like ăstrŏnŏmia and thěŏlŏgia may be pronounced as their Greek equivalents (ἀστρονομία and θεολογία, respectively), but I believe the typical Latin accent was more common anyway.

I'm not sure what's unique about the accent of păriĕtēs. I would assume it goes on the antepenult, according to the normal rules. Is that wrong?

 

[Iynx]

1. I am sorry, gentlemen, for having misidentified the author of the post in question.

2. I am sorry also if I failed to provide sufficient detail in my examples-- I thank Imber Ranae for the amplifications.

3. If I may further amplify one of the amplifications, I will point out that venumdare, benefacit and calefacit are but three instances in which an irregularity in the laws of stress-accent arises from what might be called an uncertainty about the point of word-division. Not all such instances are compounds of this particular verbal kind. Consider also, for example, the word apud in the phrase apud me. When the word stands alone, it is (per rule) stressed on the first syllable, but in combination with me, the stress moves to the second syllable, where it would regularly belong if “apudme” were a single word.

It seems to me that length markings are irrelevant here, but: ăpŭd mē. The second syllable of apud me is heavy not by nature, but by position. Sources are desired, I understand? Jones and Sidwell: Reading Latin, Cambridge, 1986, p. 517. (Quite incidentally, J & S make a bonehead mistake at this point—not as bad as my confusing Mattheus and Imber Ranae, though).

4. The vowel-combination ie is not generally considered to be a diphthong in Latin.
Pǎrǐětēs in elite classical Latin is believed to have had four syllables, with the stress on the second. But it is believed that in Latina Vulgata the i was pronounced something like an English y, the word having but three syllables. By the usual ruses the stress should then have fallen on the first syllable. But whether because the ie was felt as a diphthong or synizesis, or for some other reason, in fact it fell on the second. Sources? Parker, The Latin Language, University of Oklahoma reprint (1988) of the 1954 Faber and Faber edition, p. 155, at which point one will also find a discussion of the difficulties with syllabification (and consequently with stress-accent) in words like integrum and tenebrae (penultimate vowels before consonanat-groups ending in r). Eliot also discusses parietes, I believe, in her mini-grammar at the beginning of Harrington-Pucci (Harrington, K. P., and Pucci, J.: Medieval Latin. 2nd Edition, University of Chicago Press, 1997)—my copy is not immediately to hand.

5. Imber Ranae is exactly right about the problem with words like astronomia—it arises from uncertainty about whether the words in question should be treated as Latin or as Greek. I find a straightforward explanation of the matter in the English edition of Tore Janson’s Natural History of Latin (Oxford, 2004, p. 218).

6. But all of this is more or less beside the point. My thesis is simply that we ought not (at this point, and more generally) pretend to students that things are simpler than is in fact the case. A beginner need not know all the exceptions—how could he? But he may be-- and in my opinion should be-- warned that there are exceptions. Then he will not blame us when he learns about the exception by being corrected after screwing up.

 

[Chamaeleo]

Indeed it does seem that once you start to look at all the little exceptions and put them together, they do begin to look numerous. Perhaps there really is a good argument for dictionaries subtly marking the stressed syllable. Acutes would be a bad idea, because they look like the apex. Italicising the relevant letters would perhaps be better. It also has the advantage that we can highlight all the letters of the syllable, not just the vowel.

Words that are liable to be pronounced as two words could be separated with a pipe character: běně|fǎcǐt.

 

[Quasus]

Thanks a lot, Imber and Iynx. I was not aware at all about these nuances.