Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Blau's explanation for how ultimate stress became inHebrew
Date: Sat, 07 Aug 2010 10:52:01 -0400
----- Original Message -----
From: "Arnaud Fournet" <fournet.arnaud AT wanadoo.fr>
To: "Barry" <nebarry AT verizon.net>; <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Saturday, August 07, 2010 10:30 AM
Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Blau's explanation for how ultimate stress became
inHebrew
***
Happens all the time in ancient Greek and Latin.
N.E. Barry Hofstetter
***
Barry,
Could you please provide examples of this "happening all the time"
process?
Many Thanks.
C'est pas d'probleme, mon amis (like my pseudo-French?), I love talking
about Latin and Greek on a list devoted to Hebrew.
In Latin, the stress accent is alway remains on the first syllable of the
word. This rule is further qualified, however:
1) in word of three syllables or more, if all the vowels are short, the
accent always remains on the antepenult.
2) if the penult is long in a word of three syllables or more, it gets the
stress.
So, a`mo, but ama`mus (because the second a is long).
Now, lets take a good example that has more than one long syllable,
*mobilitas* (both the o and a are long). The stress accent falls on the
antepenult (since the i of the penult is short), but the o and the a remain
long. Or take the genitive singular of the word:
mobilitatis
The stress accent now shifts to the penult (because that a is long) but the
o does not shorten.
I can prove it from Greek, too, if you like.
Now, anecdote. It is very difficult in English to have an unaccented long
vowel. When I was first teaching Greek, my Korean students got after me for
pronouncing certain short syllables in Greek as though they were long vowels
because of the stress accent. I quickly sharpened up my pronounciation to
have less of an "American" accent... :)