Hello, and welcome to our second lesson on Early Latin Phonology. My name is Beppe Pezzini, and I teach and research on Early Latin Language and Literature at the University of St. Andrews, Scotland. Today, I will talk about syllables, prosody, and accentuation of the Early Latin Language.

The first slide I put there is passed from the previous class and repeats two points that I have already stressed several times. I will not go through them again, but let me emphasize that they are also valid for the kind of topics I will be presenting today. I think we are ready to start, and I will begin to talk about syllabification of Early Latin, which is at the foundation

of its prosody, the rules of accentuation, and also its medical system, which, however, I'll not be able to present to you today. As regards syllables, the main distinctions in Early Latin are that between open and closed syllables, and that between light and heavy syllables.

An open syllable is a syllable ending in vowel, that is, any syllable whose vocalic nucleus is followed by no sound, like rosa, or is found by another vowel, like meus, or is followed by consonant, followed by a vowel, like facis,

or is followed by a consonantal cluster known as mutacum liquida, that is, a plosive plus L or R, like duplex, for instance. A closed syllable is a syllable ending in consonant, that is, any syllable whose vocalic nucleus is followed by

one consonant and a sort of syntactic break, but at least two consonants other than the mutacum liquida sequence. So, for instance, if I have the sequence dictus, this is divided into dict plus tus. Thus, a slight exception, or apparent exception, if the two syllables belong to

two different prosodic domains, at this point, the mutacum liquida rule does not apply. So, for instance, in the form obreptare, with the prefix ob, this is not divided obreptare, but divided obreptare. In contrast, in a word like probro, we have pro followed by pro.

This distinction reflects some basic constants of syllabification of Latin and indeed many other languages. And these are, first, a syllable consists minimally of one vowel of dictang. Second, an intervocal consonant always occupies the onset of the second syllable.

Third, a word-initial onset can have up to three consonants, but in order to have the sequence consonant-consonant, so three consonants in the onset, we need to have the sequence s plus voile s-plosive at the beginning. That is, in Latin we find a noun like strabo with st at the beginning,

but we don't find words like sr plus consonant or words beginning with sf plus consonant. For a point, intersyllabic consonant clusters are divided into two syllables, except in the mutacum liquida sequence which I was talking about.

They also have to respect sonority sequences. For instance, in Latin we do find a form like spopondi, where sonority sequences is not respected in the first syllable, spo, but in the second mid-word-internal syllable it is respected, and we don't find spospondi, we find spopondi.

Fifth point, in the coda, we can have up to three consonants, but we can have three consonants only with the final two consonants consist in a voiceless pluses plus s. So for instance, in the word oops, which is normally spelled with a b, in fact we know that the

Latin will be pronounced with a p, oops, that is with a sequence voile s-plosive plus end in the coda. A final important point on the coda, violation of sonority sequences is normally tolerated, and in early Latin, for instance, we find the word looks. The other main distinction in early Latin is between a light syllable and a heavy syllable.

A light syllable is an open syllable ending with a short vowel, like facis. A heavy syllable is an open syllable ending with a long vowel, for example feci, or any close syllable, whether the vowel is short, like factus, or whether the vowel is long, like ductus.

Therefore, we may say that Latin also admits what are sometimes called super-heavy syllables, these syllables with a long nucleus and a consonant in the coda, such as causa, for instance, or loudens. At the same time, there is already in early Latin a tendency to shorten the vowel length in these kind of super-heavy syllables.

So, for instance, in the early period, we also find a first instance of the form causa, with only one s, and also, in early Latin, it is standard to have the perfect of ario as aussie, not aussie, with double s, which is what we'll expect, as for instance in gero gessi.

Syllabification, in early Latin, is normally affected by sanity, at both morpheme and word boundaries, especially in metrical text, but not only metrical text. This often affects the quantity of a vowel and the weight of a syllable.

First, a word-final syllable, in early Latin, is normally treated as if it were part of a single prosodic unity with the following word, for syllabification purposes. So, for instance, et allude is syllabified et ta lude, and therefore, the opening et of et is scanned as a light syllable.

In contrast, in the sequence et dikas, where et is followed by a word beginning with consonant, the et is scanned as a closed, heavy syllable. Moreover, the second point, the vowel of an open syllable, which is followed by

another vowel, is normally shortened. This is a phenomenon known as vocalis ante vocalem corripitur. So, for instance, the armo, which we know was originally long, the armo, in fact, in early Latin, is normally scanned as short, the armo. Final phenomenon, there are some cases in which the two vowels are merged together into a single syllable, and we call this synaeses.

So, for instance, in plotus, we find quite often the form theorum, with eo as a single syllable. Something similar to synaeses may occur at one end.

A word final syllable ending in vowel or vowel plus m, which was a very silent sound in early Latin, at this kind of sequence, preceding another vowel, is prosodically silent. Probably not completely silent from a phonological point of view, but certainly from a prosodical point of view. That is, this counts as a single syllabic unit together with the following syllable, and we call this elision.

In some cases, these kinds of vowel merging are blocked, and the two vowels are counted as two separate syllables. In this case, one may talk of diaresis, in the case of diphthongs, and hiatus, when elision does not occur, and the first long vowel of the second is often shortened.

So, for instance, in the example from the casino, we have ayatus in the sequence 2 amas, and we also have a kind of advanced form of ayatus, which, as I said, involves a shortening of the previous vowel, and the original long u of 2 becomes short too.

I can now talk about early Latina accentuation. The nature of the Latin accent, its position, and its phonological implications change with time. In the preliminary period before the 3rd century BC, it is possible that the accent was intensive in nature, and that it was always placed on the first syllable of the word.

The main evidence for this assumption is given by comparison with the standard process of weakening of word internal short vowels. In early Latin, a short vowel that during word formation becomes atonic, for atonic, that is, that loses the accent, undergoes a process of weakening.

For instance, the present stem cano, accented cano, on the beginning a, becomes kino if it becomes a word internal atonic syllable, as happens in the perfect stem, cachine, and in compounds, like conchino, which is formed by con plus cano.

This weakening is attested also in polysyllabic forms, such as conficchio, which comes from con plus facchio, in which the short vowel is atonic also when it appears in the weakened form conficchio. You see that in the first vowel we have facchio, the syllable is

accented facchio, in the compound it becomes conficchio, in both cases it is accented. How do we explain this kind of weakening if in both cases the word is tonic? This has led scholars to postulate that the original accent was not conficchio, as per the standard rules of Latin situation, but was originally on the first syllable, like conficchio.

Whatever was the case in predatory Latin, by the early period the accent was no longer protosyllabic, no longer by default on the first syllable, but this position depended on the quantity of the penultimate syllable.

If the penultimate syllable is heavy, the accent falls on it, like confectus, confecchi. If the penultimate syllable is light, the accent falls on the previous one, if any, like conficchio. These syllables are always accented on a penultimate syllable, except in the case of words resulting from syncope of an original

final syllable, so for instance the form istuc, is not read ist, but istuc, because it derives from an original istuca. Monosyllables are in early Latin at times accented, but more often are atonic and clitic, that is they lean on the previous or following word.

In some cases, this prosodic dependence is reflected in the spelling. The monosyllable is univerbated to the adjacent word, as in the case of the clitic qua or ne, and also originally in the case of prefixes. In some cases, clitics could undergo phonological reduction, as in the case of the univerbated forms

of est and es, the contracted forms factums from factum est, as you can see here. In other cases, the clitic nature is not displayed in the spelling, but can be inferred by medical or phonological considerations. For instance, we are quite sure that monosyllabic forms of est, even when not univerbated and reduced, did not normally carry an assent.

Another peculiar feature of clitics in Latin is that they can result in an assent shift. For instance, the form rosa on its own is assented, as we would expect, as rosa, but if it gets the addition of a clitic qua,

it is no longer assented rosa qua, as we would expect according to the standard rules of Latin accentuation, but instead it is assented as rosa qua. There were also some disyllabic clitics and words that formed a prosodic unity with an adjacent

word, especially in the case of syntactic units, like, for instance, supralacum, found in plotos, which we know by medical considerations was considered as a prosodic unity with supradic syllable, considered as a clitic. As regards nature, most scholars believe that by the early period the Latin accent was no longer intensive or was melodic.

However, this is not undisputed and there are some scholars, and I would say like myself, who think in a different way. In whatever case, in early Latin, the accent continued to have some influence on the phonology and the quantity of syllables.

As in the previous stages of the history of Latin, atonic syllables continued to be exposed to weakening or loss, syncope, both were internally and were finally. However, this kind of phonological reductions were not all completed in the early period, and in many cases we find, in the early Latin sources, optional variants for the same form.

As regards the former type, word-interior syllable, in plotos, for instance, we find both the old form sinistra and dextra, and the reduced forms sinistra and dextra, with syncope of the word-internal atonic syllable.

As regards final syllables, we find in early Latin the general shortening of atonic vowels in final syllables. So, for instance, the form posit is found long in plotos, but can also be found short in other autos. We also find the complete loss, in some cases, of final syllables, such as, in particular, the loss of final e, short e.

For instance, in early Latin we do find the old form faque and duce, with final short e, but also the modern developments faque and dute.

Both forms are tested in plotos, and it's not impossible that they were used with different stylizations. Our central factors are also present in one of the most intriguing and mysterious, if you want, phenomena of early Latin prosody, known as iambic shortening. Iambic shortening is the treatment of as two light syllables, as a pyrrhic

sequence, over a prosodic sequence that should be normally treated as an iambic sequence. So, you see, a sequence which is supposed to be originally light and heavy is indeed treated by iambic shortening as light and light.

This sequence can be iambic either originally, lexically, like caue. This is the form of the imperative of caue with an original long vowel, but in manually Latin text, this form is normally found as caue, as two shorts. In other cases, the iambic sequence can be iambic by sandy phenomena.

So, for instance, the sequence apudme, apud is originally a pyrrhic, like light, but if it's put before a word and beginning in consonant, it becomes iambic technically, but in fact, it's normally scanned as a light and light syllable, as a pyrrhic sequence.

In some cases, we also find iambic shortening within polysyllables, like in the case of the fonrollo putati, but my colleague, Wolfgang de Mello, will talk more about this. In some cases, we also find iambic shortening when the phenomena is spread over two words.

I'll give you one example, which is, for instance, from Plautus, tbs. We have a sequence tbes, which is iambic by sandy rules. It's a prosodic unit with one monosyllable reduced.

This sequence should be considered as iambic, but in fact, it's normally scanned as short and short. Iambic shortening is attested in all early Latin dramatic verses, both comic and tragic, and is also found as late as Lucilius' iambotarchaics at the end of the 2nd century BC.

It's quite likely that the phenomena had its origin in speech, and is probably related to the phrasal stretch patterns. The only real restriction for iambic shortening is that the shortened syllable cannot be tonic, cannot carry the ascent. Nevertheless, some scholars believe, and I will agree with them, that its extended use in poetry should be regarded as a

formal metrical license, rather than the reflection of a phonetic phenomenon of speech, especially when the syllable affected is a long one. The prosody of early Latin is a very complex topic, which is very difficult to cover in a single class, but I hope my introduction has been interesting enough for you to deepen the knowledge of this topic on your own.

Many thanks for listening, or, as we say in the Latin, gratias, vabissago, and we'll see you in the next class, where we move on to morphology.