Scansion of Aeneid VI:13

[Callaina]

General question -- how does the presence of -que on the end of a word affect where the stress falls? (I understand how it will affect the word in terms of scanning it as a long/short syllable; but I'm also interested in looking at how/when meter and the natural accentuation of a word coincide, or fail to.)

For example, just taking the famous:

Arma virumque cano, Troiae qui primus ab oris

And looking at it as prose for a moment, not poetry -- which syllable of virumque would the accent fall on?

 

[Laurentius]

Yes but as you pointed out it would make no sense to consider it a consonant in qu/ngu, so using the u would be correct.
About the OLD thing I am quite puzzled. I guess they omitted it because it's a general rule, maybe.

 

[Tomer]

For example, just taking the famous:

Arma virumque cano, Troiae qui primus ab oris

And looking at it as prose for a moment, not poetry -- which syllable ofvirumque would the accent fall on?

He gets to it later in the video (around 12:30), though I recommend watchin the whole of it, for amusement's sake.

 

[Godmy]

By adding -que you treat the whole word along with the enclitic as a new word, and therefore the stress shifts, if the conditions change according to the stress rule...

Also there is some controversy (unless I misrepresent the view) that it might be possible that all the preceding syllables (no matter if heavy or light) before -que will receive stress, but it seems as a minority opinion...

 

[Godmy]

He gets to it later in the video (around 12:30), though I recommend watchin the whole of it, for amusement's sake.

The guy sounds agreeable (I listened only to a small part of this lecture from about 8-9th minute to the 12th minute) where he rejects the traditional idea (from the traditional schools) that ictuses are in fact the new and only accents that should be read as accents in the poetry. I only don't understand why he e.g. reads "virumque" as "vīrumque" etc. But maybe I've got a better ear on the vowel lengths than him (Pronunciation strikes back)

 

[Callaina]

The guy sounds agreeable (I listened only to a small part of this lecture from about 8-9th minute to the 12th minute) where he rejects the traditional idea (from the traditional schools) that ictuses are in fact the new and only accents that should be read as accents in the poetry. I only don't understand why he e.g. reads "virumque" as "vīrumque" etc. But maybe I've got a better ear on the vowel lengths than him (Pronunciation strikes back)

Yes, I was watching the same movie the other day, but what he said about virumque contradicted all the sources I found online, so I wasn't sure whether to trust it or not. Mostly, though, I found the video very helpful. I needed something like that to get the general sound of the meter into my mind (and it was quite neat when he discussed how the natural accentuation of words create syncopations against the meter -- which I can very much appreciate since I'm a music teacher ) After listening to him and scanning/saying just a few lines out loud, I'm finding the whole process much more natural, almost automatic.

 

[Callaina]

By adding -que you treat the whole word along with the enclitic as a new word, and therefore the stress shifts, it the conditions change according to the stress rule...

Thanks, that's what I'd thought.

Also there is some controversy that it might be possible that all the preceding syllables (no matter if heavy or light) before -que will receive stress, but it seems as a minority opinion...

That would sound weird, though, wouldn't it?

 

[Etaoin Shrdlu]

By adding -que you treat the whole word along with the enclitic as a new word, and therefore the stress shifts, it the conditions change according to the stress rule...

What's the evidence for this? My inclination would be to dispute it, but if there is in fact something to support it, I'm prepared to change my uninformed mind.

 

[Godmy]

What's the evidence for this? My inclination would be to dispute it, but if there is in fact something to support it, I'm prepared to change my uninformed mind.

I would just poorly present all the evidence in all of its beauty, so I recommend to go to the page 87 in Allen's Vox Latina (PDF page: 101) and start reading the paragraph on the enclitics (a book which probably any [serious] Latinist at this forum should decide to read at some time, no matter his or her inclinations towards the restituted pronunciation).

You will find the links to the book (indirectly) in the pronunciation analysis (the sticky one) thread in the Pronunciation section of this forum, if you haven't read it already.

The main thing is that it is an enclitic - it is not a word per se (and not just because we put there no space), but for other linguistic reasons so you expect that it will behave differently than a word on its own would behave. A remotely similar thing can be observed in the Attic Greek where e.g. the final syllable can have an acute accent on the last syllable if en enlictic follows... which is not possible normally on the end of the word if other word follows.

 

[Godmy]

Yes, I was watching the same movie the other day, but what he said about virumque contradicted all the sources I found online, so I wasn't sure whether to trust it or not. Mostly, though, I found the video very helpful. I needed something like that to get the general sound of the meter into my mind (and it was quite neat when he discussed how the natural accentuation of words create syncopations against the meter -- which I can very much appreciate since I'm a music teacher ) After listening to him and scanning/saying just a few lines out loud, I'm finding the whole process much more natural, almost automatic.

I would say I would agree, though I think I would need to see it all. I just noticed some English elements in his pronunciation, as I often do (those for many people totally meaningless details as aspirations of stops (p,t,k), etc.) so I wouldn't be surprised if he sometimes mispronounced some lengths too. I'm not sure whether he did or didn't assert anything on virumque because I just watched a little bit and just noticed that he read it long (which is rather incorrect, but I take it as a maybe lapse in his pronunciation at that specific bit... OK).

That would sound weird, though, wouldn't it?

In fact, not so, because already almost quite all of the speakers in all pronunciations there are, usually read "qu" as two consecutive sounds (even though at least in the restored pronunciation this is not strictly correct) and therefore might create an illusion of a heavy syllable (though, we know that two consonants doesn't have to mean necessarily a heavy syllable as we've already got mūta cum liquidā [which is however often ignored]) and that attracts stress for those who have already get used to the stress rule and apply it fully automatically to words. BUT they probably have some more reasonable arguments I unfortunately don't know... This was just my hypothesis and also my often erroneous past practice (for that very reason).

Recently Imber Ranae has linked an old thread where this thing was discussed (you can also see there one of the veteran members 'Bitmap' - very knowledgeable(!), who unfortunately doesn't come here anymore... - and also Socratidion)

 

[Imber Ranae]

I wonder, is there some metrical or other evidence that the word neuter (and its forms) were pronounced with a diphthong? I know that the dictionaries don't use any diacritical signs with this word - which implies a diphthong and that there is also the lone word neu where we're sure it contains a diphthong (and therefore by extrapolation even neuter,a,um should behave that way) but I always thought that Romans would see this word just as a mere prefix + uter, a negation of existing and frequent uter,a,um (which it is) and therefore would continue pronouncing the ne prefix as if no vowel followed.

(This is what we do in my language where both two consecutive monophthongs e+u and a diphthong eu exist, whenever there is a negation prefix: učit vs. neučit (docēre vs. nōn docēre) where a pronunciation with a diphthong is considered either to be wrong or non-standard/colloquial exactly for this reason: that we understand it as a removable prefix, not as a solid part).

I tried to look for some metrical evidence but found none (all the examples I found would work both ways).

On the other hand the dictionaries imply a consensus here about the diphthong pronunciation so I just wondered if you might know more about this?

I had just accepted what all the sources on hand told me, but after looking into it further there does appear to be less of a consensus than I had originally been led to believe. The main contention revolves around the question of whether neuter was disyllabic or trisyllabic in Classical Latin, mostly because there is no metrical proof to be found within the Classical poets that it was one way or the other (the only exception being a line from the pseudo-Vergilian poem Ciris that requires it to be disyllabic, but this work was almost certainly composed at a later period than Vergil's genuine works). It does seem to be pretty well agreed that it was originally trisyllabic, but when it coalesced into a diphthong and how regular such a pronunciation ever became is unknown, though there are instances in the later poets where it is unequivocally disyllabic and some argue that the occasional occurrence of the archaic variant necuter in Lucretius, Seneca, and Martial in places where a trisyllable was required by the meter argues in favor of neuter having been disyllabic in their time.

 

[Imber Ranae]

Yes, I was watching the same movie the other day, but what he said about virumque contradicted all the sources I found online, so I wasn't sure whether to trust it or not.

What is contradicted, exactly?

 

[Callaina]

What is contradicted, exactly?

The guy in the video put the stress on the first syllable of "virumque" (treating "virum" and "que" like separate words, I guess) whereas most sources that I've found, and Godmy, say to treat it as a single word & therefore put the stress on the second syllable.

 

[Imber Ranae]

The guy in the video put the stress on the first syllable of "virumque" (treating "virum" and "que" like separate words, I guess) whereas most sources that I've found, and Godmy, say to treat it as a single word & therefore put the stress on the second syllable.

Ah, yes, I see.

 

[Godmy]

Thank you very much for the valuable information, IR, I appreciate it!

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I had that issue with virumque mainly on the bases of the vowel lengths which I thought he had repeatedly mispronounced with a long "i"... but I attribute that just to a pronunciation inaccuracy.

 

[Callaina]

I had that issue with virumque mainly on the bases of the vowel lengths which I thought he repeatedly mispronounced with a long "i"... but I attribute that just to a pronunciation inaccuracy.

But at the 8-min mark he very definitely says to put the stress upon the first syllable of virumque, not the second (and highlights it on the whiteboard as such!)

 

[Tomer]

So is it not at all correct to stress the first syllable in virumque?
Even with the enclictic -que, why shouldn't the antepenult be stressed? Or is it that I should totally revise some rules of thumb...

 

[Callaina]

So is it not at all correct to stress the first syllable in virumque?
Even with the enclictic -que, why shouldn't the antepenult be stressed? Or is it that I should totally revise some rules of thumb...

Because -- considering virumque as a single word -- the penult has a vowel followed by two consonants and therefore it gets the stress.

At least, as far as I understand what Godmy & others have said in this thread...hopefully someone will correct me if I'm wrong.

 

[Tomer]

Uh-huh, now that you mention it, I do remember having read that before. Indeed, let's wait for a verdict.

EDIT: Tell you what, though, when I reach out and speak it out loud, be it wrong or not, the antepenult calls out my stressing of it more feverently than does the penult. Probably due to what Godmy said earlier, regarding the way people pronounce qu.

 

[Imber Ranae]

Because -- considering virumque as a single word -- the penult has a vowel followed by two consonants and therefore it gets the stress.

At least, as far as I understand what Godmy & others have said in this thread...hopefully someone will correct me if I'm wrong.

Well, yes, but it's more complicated than that. Check out my post in the thread Godmy linked to.