CHAPTER IV.

OF THE ACCENT OF WORDS.

[§ 32.] IT is a general rule that every word has an accent on one particular syllable. This accent is twofold, either the circumflex (^) or the acute (), for what is called the grave in Greek means only the absence of either Some words have no accent, viz., the enclitics ne, que, ve, ce, which never appear by themselves, but are attached to other words. Prepositions lose their accent when they precede the cases which they govern.

accent.

Note.-The addition of these enclitics produces a change in the accent of the words to which they are attached, and which thus become compounds. The ancient grammarians have established the rule that, whenever an enclitic has a meaning of its own, the accent is thrown back* upon the syllable immediately before the enclitic, and either as the acute (if the vowel of that syllable is short), or as the circumflex (if the vowel is long), as in Musáque (nominat.) hominéque, and Musâque (ablat.) armisque. When, on the other hand, the enclitic has no meaning by itself, and forms only one word with that to which it is attached, the accent varies, as will be shown hereafter. This is the case with que; for in some compounds it either does not possess the meaning of "and" at all, or only very in

M. 23/2/ it etinetry. Hence, in itaque (and so) the accent belongs to the short

penultima, and in itaque (therefore), in which the meaning of "and" is quite obscured, the pronunciation places the accent upon the antepenultima. In the same manner, we have to distinguish between utique (and that) and útique (certainly.) By way of exception, the same grammarians place the accent on the penultima in utráque and pleraque, on account of the accent of the masculine forms uterque and plerique; although, according to the general rule, que not meaning "and," we ought to pronounce utraque and pleraque. They farther inform us that we should pronounce néquando and siquando, in order that quando may not be taken for a separate word, and aliquando, in order to distinguish it from aliquánto.

[§ 33.] 2. Monosyllables are pronounced with the circumflex, when their vowel is long by nature, and not merely by position, as in dôs, mês, flos, jús, lux, spês, fons, and môns; but when the vowel is naturally short, they are pronounced with the acute, although the syllable may be long by position; e. g., árs, párs, fúx, dúx.

Note.-Sic (so) the adverb should be pronounced with the circumflex,

* [This phraseology is objectionable. A throwing back of the accent, in the case of enclítics, is the common form of expression, but is calculated to produce a wrong idea of the nature of such words. When the enclitic is joined in pronunciation with the preceding word, a change of accent necessarily takes place, these enclitics increasing the preceding word by as many syllables as each enclitic possesses. (Göttling, Elements of Accentuation, Oxf., 1831, p. 100.)]—Am.” Ed.

and sic, which indicates a wish, with the acute; e. g., Sic te, diva potens Cypri, &c., in Horace. Comp. Priscian, De XII. Vers. Æn.

3. Words of two syllables have the accent on the first, either as circumflex, when the vowel of that syllable is naturally long, and that of the second one short; or as acute, when the vowel of the first syllable is short and that of the second long; or when the vowel of the first, as well as that of the second, is long; e. g., Rômă, mûsă, lûce, juris; but hómo, because both syllables are short; déas, because the first is short and the second long; árte, because the first is long only by position; and dóti, for although the vowel of the first is naturally long, yet that of the second is likewise long. The ancient grammarians do not notice those cases where a syllable long by position is, at the same time, long by the nature of its vowel (see above, §30); but it is probable that consul, mônte, dênte, êsse (for edere), asthma, and scêptrum were pronounced in the same manner as lûce.

4. Words of three syllables may have the accent on the antepenultima and penultima; the acute on the antepenultima, when the penultima is short, as in caédere, pérgere, hómines; the accented syllable itself may be long or short. The circumflex is placed on the penultima on the conditions before mentioned, as in amâsse, Românus; and the acute, when those conditions do not exist, and yet the penultima is long, as in Románis, Metellus. No word can have the accent farther back than the antepenultima, so that we must pronounce Constantinópolis, sollicitudinibus.

Note.-Priscian (p. 803, ed. Putsch) remarks as an exception, that the compounds of facere, which are not formed by means of a preposition, such M. 23(1) as calefacit, tepefăcit, and (p. 739) the contracted genitives in i, instead of ii (see § 49), have the accent on the penultima, even when it is short, as in ingeni, Valeri, so that we must pronounce calefácit, ingéni. He asserts the same with regard to the vocative of proper names in ius, e. g., Virgili, Valeri; while other grammarians (A. Gellius, xiii., 25) leave to this case its regular accentuation, Virgili, and not Virgili.

[§ 34.] 5. Words of two or more syllables never have the accent on the last, and it appears that it was only the grammarians who invented a different mode of accentuation, for the purpose of distinguishing words which would otherwise sound alike. They tell us that the words poné (behind) and ergô (on account of) should have the accent on the last syllable, to distinguish them from pône (put) and érgo (therefore). They farther accentuate the last

syllables of the adverbs circum, docte, raro, primo, solum, and modo, to distinguish them from the cases which have the same terminations. The interrogatives quando, qualis, quantus, ubi, and others, are said to have the accent on the first syllable, according to the rule; but when used in the sense of relatives, to have the accent on the last syllable, unless the acute be changed into the grave by reason of their connexion with other words which follow. The words ending in as, which originally ended in atis, such as optimas, nostras, Arpinas, are said to have the accent on the syllable on which they had it in their complete form, and which is now the last. The same is asserted with regard to the contracted perfects, such as audit for audivit. It is impossible to determine how much of all this was really observed by the ancients, since it is expressly attested by earlier writers, such as Quintilian, that in Latin the accent was never put on the last syllable. But it is certainly wrong to put the grave on the last syllable of all adverbs, as some persons still do, or to use accents for the purpose of indicating the natural length of a vowel, which is better expressed by a horizontal line (~).

[§ 35.] 6. These rules concerning accentuation ought to lead us to accustom ourselves to distinguish accent from quantity; to read, for example, hómines, and not hōminēs, and to distinguish, in our pronunciation, édo (I eat) from edo (I edit), légo (I read) from lego (I despatch), and in like manner, fúris (thou ravest), légis (thou readest), and régis (thou rulest) from the genitives furis, rēgis, and legis; farther, lévis (light) from levis (smooth), málus (bad) from mâlus (an apple-tree), pálūs, ūdis (a marsh), from pálus, i (a post), ánus (an old woman) from ânus (πρwктós), lútum (mud) from lutum (a dyer's weed), and also luteus (dirty or muddy) from lu ́teus (yellow), and põ ́pulus (the people) from populus (a poplar). In our own language accent and quantity coincide, but it is very wrong to apply this peculiarity to a language to which it is foreign."

* [The student will find some very sensible remarks on this subject in the dissertation of M. Burette on Plutarch's Dialogue on Music. (Mem. de Litt., tirez des registres de l'Acad. Roy. des Inscriptions, &c., vol. x., p. 189.) Nothing can show more clearly the utter absurdity of pronouncing Greek by accent alone than the applying of this same system of pronunciation to the Latin language. (Compare Liskovius, über die Aussprache des Griech., p. 250.)]—Am. Ed.

THE ACCIDENCE.

CHAPTER V.

DIVISION OF WORDS ACCORDING TO THEIR SIGNIFICATION.

[§ 36.] THE words of every language are either nouns, verbs, or particles.

A noun serves to denote an object or a quality of an object, and may accordingly be either a substantive, as domus (a house), a pronoun, as ego (I), or an adjective, as parvus (small). Nouns are declined to indicate their different relations.

A verb expresses an action or condition which is ascribed to a person or a thing, as scribo, ire, dormire, amari. A verb is conjugated in order to indicate the different modes in which an action or condition is ascribed to a person or a thing.

Particles are those parts of speech which are neither M. 24. 6. declined nor conjugated, and which are neither nouns nor verbs. They are divided into the following classes: 1. Adverbs express the circumstances of an action or condition; as, scribit bene, he writes well; diu dormit, he sleeps long. 2. Prepositions express, either directly or indirectly (§ 295), the relations of persons or things to one another, or to actions and conditions; as, amor meus erga te, my love towards thee; eo ad te, I go to thee. 3. Conjunctions express the connexion between things, actions, or propositions; as, ego et tu; clamavit, sed pater non audivit. 4. Interjections are the expressions of emotion by a single word; as, ah, ohe, vae.

These are the eight parts of speech in Latin; all of them occur in the following hexameter:

Vae tibi ridenti, quia mox post gaudia flebis.

C 2

CHAPTER VI.

NOUNS SUBSTANTIVE.-GENERAL RULES OF GENDER.

(H. Table 124. [§ 37.] NOUNS substantive are either proper (nomina propria), i. e., the names of one particular man or thing, or common (nomina appellativa), i. e., such as denote persons or things in so far as they belong to a class.

All nouns have one of three genders: masculine, feminine, or neuter.

The manner in which the gender of a noun can be ascertained from its termination will be explained under each declension. Our object here is to show the gender of nouns, both proper and common, in so far as it depends upon their meaning.*

1. The following are masculine: the names of men and of male beings; as, homo, vir, scriba, flamen, consul, rex, deus, daemon, Cupido (the God of Love), manes (the spirits of the departed), lemures (spectres); and the names of rivers, winds, and months, the words fluvius, ventus, mensis being themselves masculine.

[ 38.] Exceptions.-There are some substantives which do not originally denote men, but have come to be applied to them by custom; as, operae, labourers; vigiliae and excubiae, sentinels; copiae, troops; auxilia, auxiliary troops; mancipium, a slave; scortum and prostibulum, a prostitute. All such words have the gender which belongs to them according to their termination. The names of rivers in a, belonging to the first declension, vary in their gender. (See Schneider, Formenlehre, p. 14.) Modern writers commonly make them feminine; but the ancients, in most cases, make them masculines, which is the gender belonging to them. (See § 47.) The mytho

*["Dr. Zumpt, in this part of his Grammar, appears to place too much reliance on the authority of the Latin grammarians. It should be recollected that most of these writers lived long after the authors upon whom their comments are made, and at a time, too, when the very structure, and certainly the very idioms of the language, were materially altered. The living tongue of their times was an unsafe standard of comparison; while the relation in which they stood to the writings of Cæsar and Cicero was the same in kind as that in which we ourselves stand. On the other hand, it is much to be regretted that not one among them possessed any of that philosophical spirit which begins to distinguish modern philology. Those who have been in the habit of consulting the commentaries of Donatus and Servius, or the more systematic work of Priscian, will admit that the testimony of this class of writers, though of occasional value, should always be received with caution. The judgment of even Varro and Quintilian is not always to be depended upon, and their errors of judgment are often aggravated by the particularly corrupt state in which their writings have come down to us." (Journal of Education, vol. i., p. 95, seqq.)]-Am. Ed.