From: Christophe Grandsire (christophe.grandsire@free.fr)
Date: Tue Jan 07 2003 - 11:01:06 EST
En réponse à "Etherman23 <etherman23@yahoo.com>" <etherman23@yahoo.com>:
> Hi group,
>
> I've just started working on a Romance conlang called Orientis, and
> not having any educational background in any Romance language, I find
> myself very confused over vowels. Latin vowels distinguish between
> quality and quantity. Unfortunately the terms long and short are used
> for both traits.
That's because quantity and quality are linked in Latin. In Classical Latin,
the main trait is quantity only, and quality derives from it. So by knowing
quantity, you already know quality. In Vulgar Latin, quantity distinctions
disappeared but the quality distinctions stayed. Still, knowing the quantity
distinctions of Classical Latin makes it quite easy to know the quality
distinctions of Vulgar Latin.
I've looked through several grammar books for help
> but I've ended up more confused. Here's my problem: My Latin
> dictionary says that it marks quantity with diacritics. However, it
> doesn't do it consistently.
I'm pretty sure it does. But if it does like my Latin books, it marks vowel
quantity only when it's not derivable from the existing rules, i.e. when it's
irregular. It also doesn't give the quantity of vowels in grammatical endings
since those are supposed to be well-known already.
It also gives several rules for
> determining quantity, but these don't cover all possible cases and
> quite frequently disagree with the diacritics.
Which is quite logical since if it does like I think it does, the diacritics
are there especially in order to mark an exceptional case! :)
Other books I've
> looked at indicate long quality with a macron (unmarked vowels are
> considered short). They give the same rules about vowel quantity,
> which means that they're incomplete.
>
No. Since vowel quality is directly derivable from vowel quantity, there's
nothing to complete.
> So I guess my question is, what are the rules for determining vowel
> quantity and quality, if any? I don't want to get rid of quantity
> (the easy solution) because Orientis is supposed to be Latin
> influenced by Middle Persian which also has vowel quantity.
>
Actualy, there are no rules per se. Vowel quantity is phonemic in Classical
Latin, and thus doesn't really obey "rules". There are tabulations (i.e.
affixes always get the same quantity, for instance), but no real "rules".
Moreover, some vowels could alternate from short to long depending on the
surroundings. What there are on the other hand is rules to situate the stress
according to the length of vowels. With those rules, you can easily guess the
quantity of the penultimate syllable (which is why the penultimate is never
marked for length since normally the stress is always indicated). On the other
hand, there are rules to define *syllable* length, but I don't have them in
head right now. As for quality, it's easily derived from quantity:
- short high vowels tended to be lax, while long high vowels stayed tense
(thus /i/ was rather [I] while /i:/ was [i:]),
- short middle vowels tended to open (/e/ was nearer to [E], /o/ to [O]) while
long middle vowels stayed closed (which is why, when quantity disappeared, they
tended to get confused with short high vowels, which had already lowered their
position),
- /a/ stayed low [a], which is why it merged with /a:/ when length disappeared.
Christophe.
http://rainbow.conlang.free.fr
Take your life as a movie: do not let anybody else play the leading role.
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