Long by Nature

[Jeff1]

When looking at the rules for scansion, I see that "long by nature" for syllables is--if not left unexplained--usually defined as "having a macron".

Fair enough. But many dictionaries and glossaries don't GIVE you the macrons.

If you can't know by looking whether a syllable IS long by nature, is there a way of figuring it out?

 

[Laurentius]

You should use a dictionary that indicates them.

 

[Jeff1]

Okay, thanks.

Let me rephrase the question then:

How do people KNOW that syllables are "long by nature"? How did they DISCOVER which ones are "long by nature"? After all, Romans didn't write with macrons.

Is this a tremendously difficult art? Or can one do it while one looks at a text?

 

[Etaoin Shrdlu]

Well, to start with, there are some rules, and there's the evidence of poetry. If you are reading Virgil and get as far as arma virumque cano, if you've forgotten the rule that tells you that the O of the first person singular present indicative is long, the metre reminds you. It can't be anything else.

 

[Imber Ranae]

I'm not aware of a single Latin dictionary that neglects to indicate vowel length in open syllables. Maybe it exists, but I've yet to see it.

Well, to start with, there are some rules, and there's the evidence of poetry. If you are reading Virgil and get as far as arma virumque cano, if you've forgotten the rule that tells you that the O of the first person singular present indicative is long, the metre reminds you. It can't be anything else.

That's the main one, but there's also the evidence of the Romance daughter languages: Latin's long and short vowels produced different reflexes in many of them. And in a few cases Roman grammarians outright tell us that a certain vowel was long or short, especially as regarded hidden quantities.

 

[Laurentius]

And sometimes we have apices or doubled vowels in inscriptions.

 

[Imber Ranae]

Ah, right, I forgot about those.

 

[Laurentius]

But keep in mind that some dictionaries might say that the vowels begore -gn are long by nature, which today is believed to be untrue, and others might not indicate the long quantity of the vowels before -ns -nf or, in most incohative verbs, -sc.

 

[Jeff1]

quote="Imber Ranae, post: 237818, member: 2410"]I'm not aware of a single Latin dictionary that neglects to indicate vowel length in open syllables. Maybe it exists, but I've yet to see it.

[/quote]

Oh, for example --

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/morph?l=multas&la=latin#lexicon

They are all over the place...

Or --

"mult.us ADJ 1 1 NOM S M POS multus, multa -um, -, plurimus -a -um ADJ [XXXAX] much, many, great, many a; large, intense, assiduous; tedious;"

at

http://latin.ucant.org/

 

[Laurentius]

Where should it indicate them, in the examples you posted?
Btw Perseus uses L&S dictionary that often shows wrong lenghts.

 

[Imber Ranae]

Oh, for example --

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/morph?l=multas&la=latin#lexicon

They are all over the place...

Or --

"mult.us ADJ 1 1 NOM S M POS multus, multa -um, -, plurimus -a -um ADJ [XXXAX] much, many, great, many a; large, intense, assiduous; tedious;"

at

http://latin.ucant.org/

Lewis and Short (the dictionary you linked to on Perseus) actually does indicate vowel length in open syllables, but of course only in the lemma and generally not in the inflexional endings where length is predictable, as you can see if you go to the dictionary entry itself. You seem to have the same issue that I've seen in a few others of confusing Perseus's parsing tool, which indeed does not indicate vowel length, with the dictionary (L&S) that's integrated into the site.

Whitaker's Words is also a parsing tool and not a dictionary, though some people (unfortunately) use it as one.

Where should it indicate them, in the examples you posted?
Btw Perseus uses L&S dictionary that often shows wrong lenghts.

I wouldn't say often, but occasionally they're marked wrong. This is in fact a problem with Perseus's transcription of L&S and not with L&S itself.

 

[Laurentius]

I wouldn't say often, but occasionally they're marked wrong. This is in fact a problem with Perseus's transcription of L&S and not with L&S itself.

Especially with the one followed by muta+liquida it mistakes them quite often imho. I didn't know it was only with Perseus, is it true? I go to another site that uses L&S but there are still mistakes. Also not sure if it is the same transcripton because it uses Js.

 

[Imber Ranae]

Especially with the one followed by muta+liquida it mistakes them quite often imho. I didn't know it was only with Perseus, is it true? I go to another site that uses L&S but there are still mistakes. Also not sure if it is the same transcripton because it uses Js.

Oh, right, I think that's a conscious choice on their part to always count those vowels as long, because technically they can always be treated as long in verse. I'm not sure why they do that.

Actually, I have a pretty good idea as to why they did it that way: it's basically a combination of them being noncommittal (or just lazy, depending on how you look at it) and favoring consistency above all else. It all comes down to the fact that there's no way of knowing for certain that a vowel before muta cum liquida is long (because such a syllable can always be treated long in poetry), even though there sometimes is clear evidence that it's short. The consistency part is in their decision not to distinguish between these two cases, maybe for fear of being proved wrong in some instances because they didn't have all of the metrical evidence on hand. L&S generally doesn't commit itself to marking other hidden quantities either, even when they're positively known, so this is in keeping with their general philosophy.

 

[Laurentius]

Yes it can be, still strange because there's clear evidence of them being short in poetry. Surely they knew the muta+liquida or they wouldn't even mark these vowels as long, as they seem to do for "Africa" for example, maybe they didn't know f is muta too.

To the OP, another thing is that before semiconsonant i some dictionaries mark syllables ending in vowel as long, even when, if I remember well, they are infact short and just made long by position because j is a double consonant.

 

[Imber Ranae]

Yes it can be, still strange because there's clear evidence of them being short in poetry.

But that's the thing, though: while there's often clear evidence that such a vowel is short, there can never be indisputable evidence that such a vowel is long. After all, there could always be some verse out there that proves it short, and every instance you do have of it being long might just be metri causa (and if the word is scantly attested in poetry anyway, forget about it). So they decided just to mark all such vowels as long regardless, because technically they always can be.

Surely they knew the muta+liquida or they wouldn't even mark these vowels as long, as they seem to do for "Africa" for example, maybe they didn't know f is muta too.

Hmm, you're right. I'm not sure what that's about. Seems inconsistent.

To the OP, another thing is that before semiconsonant i some dictionaries mark syllables ending in vowel as long, even when, if I remember well, they are infact short and just made long by position because j is a double consonant.

Yeah, L&S does that, too. I personally don't like it.

 

[Laurentius]

But that's the thing, though: while there's often clear evidence that such a vowel is short, there can never be indisputable evidence that such a vowel is long. After all, there could always be some verse out there that proves it short, and every instance you do have of it being long might just be metri causa (and if the word is scantly attested in poetry anyway, forget about it). So they decided just to mark all such vowels as long regardless, because technically they always can be.

Yes, luckily often such words don't have that problem as singular masculine nominatives and we can see how it really is.