Overview

Latin Grammarians on the Latin Accent offers a fresh perspective on a long-standing debate about the value of Latin grammarians writing about the Latin accent: should the information they give us be taken seriously, or should much of it be dismissed as copied mindlessly from Greek sources? This book focusses on understanding the Latin grammarians on their own terms: what they actually say about accents, and what they mean by it. Careful examination of Greek and Latin grammatical texts leads to a better understanding of the workings of Greek grammatical theory on prosody, and of its interpretation in the Latin grammatical tradition. It emerges that Latin grammarians took over from Greek grammarians a system of grammatical description that operated on two levels: an abstract level that we are not supposed to be able to hear, and the concrete level of audible speech. The two levels are linked by a system of rules. Some points of Greek thought on prosody were taken over onto the abstract level and not intended as statements about the actual sound of Latin, while other points were so intended. While this book largely sets aside the question whether the Latin grammarians tell us the truth about the Latin accent, focussing instead on understanding what they actually say, it begins to offer answers for those wishing to know when to 'believe' Latin grammarians in the traditional sense: the book shows which of their statements are intended - and which are not intended - as statements about the actual sound of Latin.

Full Product Details

Author:   Philomen Probert (Professor of Classical Philology and Linguistics and Fellow of Wolfson College, Professor of Classical Philology and Linguistics and Fellow of Wolfson College, University of Oxford)
Publisher:   Oxford University Press
Imprint:   Oxford University Press
Dimensions:   Width: 14.10cm , Height: 2.50cm , Length: 22.30cm
Weight:   0.546kg
ISBN:  

9780198841609

ISBN 10:   0198841604
Pages:   348
Publication Date:   04 July 2019
Audience:   Professional and scholarly ,  Professional & Vocational
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   To order  
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Table of Contents

Frontmatter List of Figures and Tables General Abbreviations Ancient Authors and Works, with Editions Used Symbols Used in the Presentation of Texts and Translations 1: Introduction 2: Some History of Scholarship: An Unhelpful Question and Some Helpful Ones 2.1: Pitch or stress? 2.2: Why 'pitch or stress' is an unhelpful question 2.3: Some helpful questions 2.3.1: An accent on the final syllable of prepositions and relative pronoun forms? 2.3.2: An accent on the syllable before an enclitic? 2.3.3: An acute/circumflex contrast? 2.4: Questions that will not be pursued in this book 3: Ancient Greek Theory of Prosody: Some Relevant Characteristics 3.1: Ancient terms and concepts for Greek accentuation 3.2: Two levels of description 3.3: 'Natural accents' as abstract entities 3.4: A second function for 'natural accents' 3.5: Discussion of accents in texts 3.6: Alternative descriptions of the same facts 3.7: Distinctions can be reinterpreted as abstract 4: Latin Proclitics I: Late Antique Grammarians 4.1: Approach one: one level of description 4.2: Approach two: on an abstract level proclitics obey the 'penultimate law' 4.3: Approach three: an acute on the final syllable, on an abstract level 4.4: Latin is not Greek: challenges for approach three 4.4.1: The scope of the lulling rule 4.4.2: Proclitics with a long final vowel 4.4.3: Proclitics before enclitics 4.5: Conclusions 5: Latin Proclitics II: Earlier Stages of the Tradition 5.1: P.Sorb. inv. 2069 on unde 5.1.1: Excursus: indefinite words in Priscian 5.1.2: P.Sorb. inv. 2069 and Priscian on unde: a comparison 5.2: Aulus Gellius 5.3: Velius Longus 5.4: Quintilian 5.5: Remmius Palaemon 5.6: Conclusions 6: que, ue, ne, ce: Latin Grammarians on Enclitics 6.1: Approach one: one level of description 6.2: Approach two: a forward shift of accent 6.3: Approach three: one accent shifts forward and one is lost 6.4: Approach four: the second accent shifts backwards and the first is lost 6.5: When is que not an enclitic? 6.6: Enclitics after prepositions 6.7: Latin grammarians on que, ue, ne, ce: a summary 6.8: Whether to take the grammarians' principle seriously 6.8.1: Further evidence for the linguistic reality of the pair ítaque ~ itáque 6.9: How far back can we trace the tradition? 6.9.1: The common source of Diomedes and Donatus 6.9.2: Varro 6.9.3: Early Latin? 7: Latin Vowel Length 7.1: Loss of distinctive vowel quantity in Latin 7.2: Vowel length in late antique Latin grammarians 8: The Latin Circumflex 8.1: When did Greek acutes and circumflexes stop sounding different? 8.2: Early stages of the acute/circumflex distinction in the Latin grammatical tradition 8.2.1: Cicero 8.2.2: Varro 8.2.3: Vitruvius 8.2.4: Quintilian 8.2.5: Aulus Gellius 8.2.6: Early stages of the tradition: a summary 8.3: Late antique grammarians on Latin words that deviate from the penultimate law 8.3.1: Grecizing accents on final syllables 8.3.2: Accents on final syllables of apocopated and syncopated forms 8.3.3: Wrong accents 8.3.4: Abstract accents 8.3.5: ergo 'for the sake of' 8.3.6: insula 8.3.7: Deviations from the penultimate law: a summary 8.4: The circumflex debate: a proposed resolution 8.5: A footnote: late antique grammarians and the 'slow' accent 9: 'For the sake of a distinction'? 9.1: pone 9.2: ergo 9.3: Aeneid I. 32 9.4: Valeri 9.5: Conclusions 10: Conclusions Endmatter References Index

Reviews

Among the many merits of the book one should emphasize its rigour, precision, and considerable attention to the structure of the chapters (always furnished with very useful conclusions); the willingness to provide the reader with all the information considered necessary for comprehension, and to organize it very carefully * Anna Zago, Studi E Saggi Linguistici *

Author Information

Philomen Probert is Professor of Classical Philology and Linguistics at the University of Oxford and a Fellow of Wolfson College. She is the author of A New Short Guide to the Accentuation of Ancient Greek (Bloomsbury, 2003), Ancient Greek Accentuation: Synchronic Patterns, Frequency Effects, and Prehistory (OUP, 2006), and Early Greek Relative Clauses (OUP, 2015), as well as co-editor of Laws and Rules in Indo-European with Andreas Willi (OUP, 2012).

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