For questions about vowel length.
Questions tagged [vowel-quantity]
87 questions
8
votes
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Why a long ē in rēx, rēgis but not in regere or regiō?
I'm assuming it's not a phonological thing—like, if the ē in rēx was compensatorily lengthened because of g—>x, then it would be regis, not rēgis, right?
Joel Derfner
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Is there any rule to the length of "e" in "-ensis<"?
Is there any rule to the length of e in -ensis?
I looked up the following words in Perseus (which give entries from 'Lewis & Short' and 'Elem. Lewis') and Wiktionary, without being able to discern any pattern.
Lewis & Short | Elem. Lewis |…
Catomic
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7
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Is it rare to elide the final vowel if it is long?
In the Ars Poetica we find the line:
posse linenda cedro et levi servanda cupresso
which pedecerto scans as
Pṓssĕ lĭnḗndă cĕdro‿ḗt lēuī́ sēruā́ndă cŭprḗsso
In C.O. Brink's commentary on Horace we find the comment:
cedro et leui: an isolated…
bobsmith76
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Does vowel quantity ever change in the root of a word during conjugation?
I have built a database of Latin words but am having a few problems. I have two databases, one is from Python's CLTK, the other is from online-latin-dictionary.com (OLD). The Python database is derived from Collatinus which is more reliable but…
bobsmith76
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4
votes
1 answer
vowel length in "pro" before "f"
When I'm reading macronized texts, the prefix "pro" always seems to be marked long, with the exception of a few words in which it's followed by the letter "f": profugus, for example, and proficīscī, but not prōficere or prōferre. I've seen a handful…
Joel Derfner
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4
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Can vowel length be detected somehow in prose?
There are some words that appear to be complete homonyms other than by the length of a vowel. For example, there is the word labellum, which can mean either a lip (part of the body) or a basin/sink. In both cases the word is neuter and the two words…
Tyler Durden
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3
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Inconsistent use of short and long vowel signs
To my knowledge every vowel is either long, short or belongs to a diphthong, there are no vowels which are medium in length. If a vowel belongs to a diphthong, it seems that modern writers will mark the second vowel either long or short. Every once…
bobsmith76
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Where can I get a reliable list of words with macrons on?
When people are adding macrons to text, how do they know where the macrons should be? Is there a list somewhere?
e.g.
insula -> īnsula or īnsulā
maxima -> maxima or māxima
etc.
I'd like to write a program to take a text and output a macronized…
John Lawrence Aspden
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vote
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Vowel length of the first "i" of "VIRIDIS"
Could anyone tell me if the first "i" of "VIRIDIS" (green), the one between "v" and "r", is long or short?
Thanks in advance for your help.
Olavo Panseri
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