ut Serēnus dīxit, hoc modo rēferret sī accentus latīnus esset rēs 'phonēmica', sed plērumque pendet ab longitūdine syllabārum. discrīmina subphonēmica nōn momentī sunt, secundum dēfīnitiōnem solitam.
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Latin minimal pairs distinguished only by vowel length
- Thread starter Philip Newton
- Start date
What gives me pause is that stress and vowel length are not totally coupled. You can have a stressed syllable without a long vowel, and unstressed syllables with long vowels. I suppose what you don't find is a situation where stress difference alone constitutes a minimal pair.
prōrsus nōn intellegō quid dīcās. sānē nōn ita est rēgula, ut accentus dētur syllabīs quibus uōcālis longa sit. sed est rēgula, quā accentus dētur secundum longitūdinēs syllabārum (pēnultimae, sī longa sit; sīn aliter, antepēnultimae).
uel fortasse displicet hoc, quod rēgula dēfīnītur dē longitūdine syllabārum nec vōcālium. uērum est nōn modo uōcālēs accentum regere, sed etiam cōnsonantēs. sed ex eīs quae dīcis, etiam clārior est rēs: longitūdinēs uōcālium et cōnsonantēs regunt accentum, nec accentus longitūdinēs.
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avē - 'hello'
ave - 'O grandpa'
ave - ablative of avis 'bird'
lūctīs - dat./abl. of lūctus -a -um, perfect passive participle of lūgeō lūgēre 'to mourn'
luctīs - dat./abl. of lucta 'a wrestling match', later 'a fight' (in general, even a verbal one)
(+ other forms of lūcta in the feminine against the forms of lŭcta)
The use of a short -u- in luctor luctārī and its derived term lucta is a bit controversial, see the Wiktionary entry on luctor for a useful short discussion: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/luctor
ave - 'O grandpa'
ave - ablative of avis 'bird'
lūctīs - dat./abl. of lūctus -a -um, perfect passive participle of lūgeō lūgēre 'to mourn'
luctīs - dat./abl. of lucta 'a wrestling match', later 'a fight' (in general, even a verbal one)
(+ other forms of lūcta in the feminine against the forms of lŭcta)
The use of a short -u- in luctor luctārī and its derived term lucta is a bit controversial, see the Wiktionary entry on luctor for a useful short discussion: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/luctor
secundum Weiss, Outline of the Historical and Comparative Grammar of Latin, 175, uērisimiliter lēx Lachmannis orta est modo in latīnā linguā ipsā.
ergo, cum luctor habēret nūllam g, nec per analogiam īnserī poterat, fortasse lēx lachmannis nōn pertinet ad hoc uerbum.
agito, the future imperative of ago and the first person singular present of agito. How does one emit accented characters?
Those aren't a minimal pair, they're simply homophones.
If you mean macrons, it's a bit of a pain in the backside. I'm sure some more tech-savvy people on here have other solutions, but I personally use this. Or, when I can't be bothered, I just use acute accents (´) instead. Those, after all, look like the apices that the Romans used (though the ancient usage wasn't systematized like the current macron use; they would only use apices on the occasional vowel that they felt needed clarifying or whatnot).
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Usage of the apex (and i-longa) can vary quite a lot: https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/orthographic-traditions-and-the-subelite-in-the-roman-empire/apices-and-ilonga-introduction/CC4DEC19ECEBEC1113FB21ECF41A97C8
Macrons are easy to type on Mac by changing the keyboard to Maori. Then you can get a macron on a vowel by holding down alt and pressing the vowel. There must be something similar available on Windows.
Minimal pairs can't be homophones?
That principally, but any. I have a system: I have a page full of special characters, which my homepage references. I mark a character then transfer it. I asked here because I see them used freely, thought that the site had a system to do it more easily.
I use Linux.
No. A minimal pair is a pair of words that sound almost the same but differ by one sound. In this thread, we specifically want pairs that differ only by one vowel being short in the one word and long in the other; e.g. malus meaning "bad" and mālus meaning "apple tree".
I'm less familiar with Linux, but I assume the principle is similar. There is some information on this webpage, such as the following:
This might also be helpful.
Thanks. I can customize my Linux keyboard. I asked in case this website had provision for it.
I just use "ABC - Extended."