The Identity of the Child in Virgil's Pollio: an Afterword D. D. LUCKENBILL: A Possible Occurrence of the Name Alexander in the Boghaz-Keui Tablets. W. A. HEIDEL: Note on [Plutarch] Stromat. 2. W. A. OLDFATHER: Xenophon's Memorabilia iv. 2. 10: yvwμovikos. CLARK, Ammiani Marcellini Rerum Gestarum Libri Qui Supersunt (Rand).—MÜLDER, Die Ilias und Ihre Quellen (Scott).-BYWATER, Aristotle on the Art of Poetry (Milner).-CAPPS, Four Plays of Menander: The Hero, Epitrepontes, Periceiromene, and Samia (Prescott).— BAIKIE, The Sea Kings of Crete (Hall).-ZIEBARTH, Aus dem griechischen Schulwesen Eudemos von Miletus und Verwandtes (Bonner).-GOEKOOP, Ithaque, la Grande (Miller).-Zervos, Μαρκέλλου Σιδήτου περὶ Σφυγμών (Miller).-POSTGATE, Dead Language and Dead Languages (Miller).- HINNEBERG, Die Kultur der Gegenwart, Vol. I, part 5 (Shorey).-Süss, Ethos (Shorey).-CROISET, Aristophanes and the Political Parties at Athens (Calhoun).—SONNEN- SCHEIN, The Unity of the Latin Subjunctive: A Quest (Nutting).-BIRT, Die Buchrolle in der Kunst: archäologischantiquarische Untersuchungen zum antiken Buchwesen (Gulick).—PROU, Manuel de paléographie latine et française (Shipley).-DEUBNER, Kosmas und Damian (Moore).-Blaufuss: Römische Feste und Feiertage nach den Tractaten über fremden Dienst (Aboda zara) in Mischna, Tosefta, Jerusalemer und babylonischem Talmud (Moore).- VON FLESCHENBERG, Dares-Studien (Moore).-BRUTON, The Classical Association of England and Wales, Manchester and District Branch, Second Annual Report: The Roman Fort at Manchester (Dennison).-LEISI, Der Zeuge im attischen Recht (Goligher).-BURNAM, Com- mentaire anonyme sur Prudence d'après le manuscrit 413"de Valenciennes (Pease).-HELM- REICH, Galeni de Usu Partium Libri XVII (Heidel).—ARVANITOPOULLOS, Оeσσaλiкà Mvnμeîa, Ι. Περιγραφὴ τῶν γραπτῶν στηλῶν Παγασῶν (Tarbell).-ZIPPELIUS and WOLFSFELD, Priene check is used, 10 cents must be added for collection. The following agents have been appointed and are authorized to quote prices indicated: postage, 11s. 3d. each; single copies, including postage, 38. 4d. each. including postage, M. 11.50 each; single copies, including postage, M. 3.40 each. The publishers expect to supply missing numbers free only when they have been lost in transit. Business communications should be addressed to the University of Chicago Press, Chicago, Ill. Classical Philology VOL. VI Fanuary, 1911 No. I THE LAW OF BREVES BREVIANTES IN THE LIGHT OF PHONETICS BY E. A. SONNENSCHEIN It is my object in this paper to discuss a question which is probably troubling the minds of a good many students of old Latin verse, and if possible to suggest a solution. But I want to avoid going into a multitude of details which would probably only confuse the main issue. I will write briefly, as to fellow-students who are well acquainted with the phenomena to which I refer and who will themselves supply the gaps in my exposition and correct it, if it falls at some points into overstatement. For criticism I shall be grateful. If I am on altogether wrong lines, the sooner I am put right the better for me.1 In a former paper (Classical Review XX [1906], 158 f.) I said that the phenomena coming under the head of the "Breves Breviantes" law may require to be reinterpreted if Plautine verse is to be regarded as "semi-quantitative" rather than fully quantitative. I will not attempt here to justify the use of the term "semi-quantitative"; for that would lead me into a discussion of the important part played by accent (word-accent and sentence-accent) in Plautine verse, and for that I have not room.-I note that my general position has been challenged by Professor Harkness (Classical Philology II, 63); in reply I would beg him to note the difference between "inner falls" and "outer falls" (see p. 9 below). Quantitative rhythm of the iambic or trochaic order depends on the shortness of the inner falls (i.e., those which come between the two rises of the iambic or trochaic dipody) just as much as on the length of the rises. But a long syllable may be used at either end of the series without disturbing the quantitative rhythm. This is shown by Greek verse, in which the outer, but not the inner, falls can be formed by a long syllable. The Greek comedians, no doubt, often form their inner falls of two short syllables; but not, I think, without some sacrifice of the true iambic rhythm. When the step is taken of admitting a long syllable to the inner fall I maintain that the verse can no longer be described as fully quantitative. [CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY VI, January, 1911] 1 The existence of a law of Breves Breviantes-or something which corresponds to what is commonly described by that name-in the sphere of Latin morphology is indisputable. We are face to face with such shortenings as beně, malě, amăt, lubět, monitus (by analogy of monitúrus, from monětúrus, cf. Monēta), etc.-shortenings the evidence for which may be seen in any classical writer of Latin verse.1 It seems unfortunate, however, that this law should be described by a term which ignores an essential factor of the shortening. So far as I have observed, at any rate, all writers on the subject make the presence of a stress on the Brevis or on the syllable which follows the Brevianda an element in the case, without which the law would be inoperative: béně, málě, etc.; pudícítiam, iuvěntútis, etc. (these latter being found only in OL verse, Amph. 930, 154, etc.). The term "shortening shorts," however, suggests that a short syllable has in itself the power of shortening the syllable which follows, by a process which some writers have described as "assimilation of quantity," apart from stress of voice.2 Another point that I notice in the current statements of this law is the inadequacy of the phonetic explanation which is offered. Victor Henry defends the doctrine of assimilation of quantity as follows: Iambic words like duo show a curious peculiarity. It is physically possible to pronounce successively an accented short vowel and an unaccented long vowel; but, especially if the accent is strongly marked, it will be noticed that the long vowel then tends scarcely to exceed in length the preceding short vowel. Hence, in versification previous to the Augustan age, all words of this kind were treated, at the option of the writer, either The fact that mater and frater have a short final syllable in the earliest Latin, just as much as păter, has been recently accounted for by Skutsch (Glotta II, 151 f.) by the supposition that all these forms are properly vocatives, which have taken over the function of nominatives. In many exceptions to the law the long quantity may be explained as restored by analogy. "The term 'Breves Breviantes' originated as an explanation of certain facts of OL verse structure: and if the facts in question admit of a better explanation, some new term will be called for in morphology also. In most cases the reduction of a vowel is due to weakness of stress; but it may also be due to increase of speed on the part of the speaker, when he is conscious that he has to utter a good many sounds in one breath-group." (I take this statement from a letter by my friend Professor Rippmann, whom I am glad to find in general sympathy with the contention of this paper.) as iambics or as pyrrhics, and we find the scansion rõgă = rogā, přtă, uždě, domí, ušlo, rögð, hõmŏ, etc.1 The appeal is to the experience and ear of the reader. Similarly Lindsay remarks, "We ourselves, if we pronounce a phrase of this kind, feel that the short syllable că- exercises a shortening influence in this position upon the following long syllable -vē." I know of no such law of phonology as is here implied. In an English word like "echo" the second syllable is to my ear longer than the first; indeed such words as "echo," "shadow," "never" tend to become fully iambic before a pause, the second syllable being lengthened as a kind of balance to the accented first syllable. Thus the ordinary prose pronunciation of "shadow" seems to me not very different from that which it has in Tennyson's verse (The Last Tournament)— And friends and foes were shadows (~ −) in the mist. Distrusting my own ear I appealed to Mr. Henry Sweet, and he gave me welcome and unequivocal confirmation. There can be no doubt that in such words as echo the second vowel is longer than the first. When such words are drawled the lengthening falls entirely on the unaccented vowel, as in "what a pityyy!" That there is no necessity for shortening dúo into dúo is proved by the fact that in Old English the final u of the neuter plural is dropped at the end of long monosyllables like hūs, word, but kept in such words as scipu . exactly the opposite of what we should expect from the law of Breves Breviantes. So much for the phonetic basis of the law! 1 Comparative Grammar of Greek and Latin, Eng. Transl., 87. 2A Short Historical Latin Grammar 34 f. Compare the following statements of Skutsch and Lindsay in reference to the pronunciation of words like uoluptatem: "Everyone can convince himself by a practical experiment how difficult it is, when speaking with a certain degree of rapidity, to give its proper length to the middle syllable of a group consisting of -, if the first or the third syllable has an expiratory accent of the strength which we must ascribe to the Latin accent: one's own experiment will convince one better than a theoretical argument" (Skutsch Forschungen 7). Lindsay says (Latin Language 201 f.): "The normal scansion of all these second syllables is that of classical poetry; but the position of the syllable between a short syllable on the one hand and an accented syllable on the other made it especially liable to be slurred in pronunciation, so that the dramatic poets, who followed more closely the pronunciation of everyday life than others, felt themselves at liberty, when the exigencies of meter demanded, to treat it as a short syllable." That the second syllable of words like uoluptātem, fenestratus offers some impediment to utterance, and that it is difficult for our English or German organs of speech to do full justice to its length, is no doubt true. |