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A ‘long’ vowel is long by duration; this does not imply any extra loudness, emphasis, or stress, but simply the time you linger over the vowel (and syllable). There is a stress accent, however, and this is similar to our English one:- the penultimate syllable of a word is stressed if it is long, e.g. ómnes, vivámus; but if that syllable is short, then the previous (antepenultimate) one is stressed, e.g. ómnibus, vívimus. Words of two syllables carry the stress on the first syllable, whether it is long or short (pater), and monosyllablic words are also stressed, if only negligibly so in the case of some minor words (ad, et, etc.). The force of the stress will no doubt have varied according to how the word was being used, the speaker, region and period. Latin poetry before and after the classical period was almost certainly based on rhythms created by the stressing of certain syllables – as in English. Classical Latin verse had rhythms borrowed and refined from Greek poets, who used the quantities of syllables to create the rhythm. This interplay of natural stress and quantity gives classical Latin verse its especial character. Most medieval Latin poems were founded on a rhythm of stress only. |