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The Latin Initial Syllable in the Romance Languages

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

Ephraim Cross
Ephraim Cross*
Affiliation:
The College of the City of New York
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Extract

The cardinal question of the inherent strength of the initial syllable has again been raised by Roland G. Kent in an article “The Alleged Strength of the Initial Syllable,” Language, vii, 3, (September, 1931), 179–189. Kent introduces his challenge of certain current notions of the Latin accent with the query:

Does the initial syllable of a word possess some peculiar strength which makes it resist change or loss of its vowel better than other syllables do—other factors being equal?

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 49 , Issue 4 , December 1934 , pp. 994 - 1004
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1934

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References

1 W. D. Whitney, A Sanskrit Grammar, 4th ed. (Anastatic reprint). (Leipzig, Boston, 1896, 1913), §135, e.

2 Stolz-Schmalz, Lateinische Grammatik (Iwan von Müller: Handbuch der Altertumswissenschaft), 5th ed. (Munich: C. H. Beck, 1928), p. 174.

3 Dominance et résistance dans la phonétique latine (Heidelberg: Carl Winter, 1913).

4 Recherches sur l'histoire et les effets de l'intensité initiale en latin (Paris: 1902).

5 See Meyer-Lübke, Grammatik der rom. Spr., Erster Band: Lautlehre, (Leipzig: R. Reisland, 1890), §349 ff.

6 Meyer-Lübke, op. cit., §341.

7 B. Weise, Altitalienisches Elementarbuch, zweite verb. Aufl. (Heidelberg: Carl Winter, 1928), p. 22, ff.

8 Weise, §88, p. 49.

9 R. Menèndez Pidal, Manual de gramática histórica española, 5th ed. (Madrid: Suárez, 1929), §22.

10 See Schwan-Behrens, Gramm. des Altfr., 12th revised ed., (Leipzig, 1925), §78, 2d.

11 O. Schultz-Gora, Altprov. Elementarbuch, 4th enlarged ed. (Heidelberg, 1924), §57.

12 E. Bourciez, Éléments de linguistique romane, deuxième éd. ref. et compl. (Paris: Klincksieck 1923),—later edition not necessary.

13 Zweite unveränd. Aufl. (Heidelberg: Carl Winter, 1924).

14 On loss of initial consonant, see M.-L.: Gramm. der rom. Spr., §§428, 429.

15 For a theory as to this loss see D'Ovidio-Meyer-Lübke, Grammatica storica della lingua dei dialetti italiani, 3rd rev. ed. by Polcari (Milano: Hoepli, 1932), pp. 97–98.

15a Ibid.

16 See M.-L., Ital. Gram. (Leipzig: Reisland, 1890), §144, p. 86, and Wiese, op. cit., §48.—For another explanation of aphaeresis in Italian see D'Ovidio—M.-L., op. cit., pp. 98–99.

17 M.-L., Ital. Gramm., §144, p. 86.

18 Bourciez, op. cit.

19 Weise, op. cit.

20 The prosthetic i is witness to what effort is made toward the preservation of the initial.

21 See further M.-L., Gr. der rom. Spr., §373.

22 See M.-L., It. Gramm., pp. 86–87.

23 H. Collitz in a paper (as yet unpublished) entitled “A Group of Clipped Words in Latin” lists a number of forms which allow me the observation that even in wilful, non-phonetic shortening the most extensive is the type that preserves the initial portion of the word. Collitz' paper opens up a long vista to which linguists have surprisingly given scanty and often unfavorable attention.