Re: [tied] the rhythm and stress in Latin

Again, it's a question of technical definitions. In phonological theory, mora = unit of phonological weight. "Unit of time" is a tricky term to define in phonology, since the perceived duration of strings of segments is not the same thing as their physical duration. In particular, syllable onsets seem to be ignored: /a/, /ta/ and /tra/ are all perceptually equivalent, though common sense might tell you that /tra/ must be physically much longer than /a/ (and it really is, other things being equal). Rhyme constituents, on the other hand, play a role irrespective of their vocalic or consonantal character (the rhyme of a syllable is whatever follows the onset): VC and VV "weigh" the same even if they don't last the same if measured in miliseconds. If we define a "heavy" rhyme as VX (any complex structure, as opposed to "light" V), there is no disjunction.

You speak of Greek _tonal accent_, really, not _stress_. The two phenomena should not be confused. Tone is indeed a moraic phenomenon, and in Greek it is further restricted to vocalic moras (which is a language-specific preference: in Baltic, for example, liquids and nasals may also be tonal), while stress is a property of syllables. We do not know much very much about the placement of stress in Classical Greek, but there has been some interesting research into that as well, and it seems at least clear that Greek was stressed as well as accented, and that the location of stress was partly independent of accentuation.

Piotr

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Subject: Re: [tied] the rhythm and stress in Latin

Piotr said: >If we assume that a consonant in a rhyme position (i.e. in the syllable coda) contributes one mora of phonological weight (this is a language-specific option), CV: and CVC syllables each carry the same weight (two moras) ...The syllable-final obstruent in each penult is moraic by virtue of the position it occupies in the syllable structure. Me (peter): These words selected from Piotr's posting indicate why I want to query the use of the term "mora". I believe it is here being used in a way that is unhelpful. If "mora" means anything, it means a unit of time, but here the word is being redefined to fit the Latin evidence (it no long means a unit of time, but an element of phonological weight). That fact that the word has to be redefined shows that the concept is not the correct one for describing what actually happens in Latin. Instead we should talk directly in terms of phonological weight, and face squarely up to the fact that there are two sources of phonological weight - syllable closure, and vowel length - so our rule must be disjunct: a heavy syllable is either one which is closed or or one with a long vowel/diphthong. A final consonant does not take the same "time" as the second element of a diphthong or long vowel and so I don't think we should call it a "mora". In the instances where Latin has alternatives - such pat-rem or pa-trem - it is not a matter of whether or not the "t" takes more time or less time to say, but of syllable division. So calling the "t" moraic in one case and not moraic in the other is, I think, misleading and unhelpful. We should also not describe Latin by terminology more appropriate to Greek. In that language, stress is moraic, but it is not affected by syllable closure (MMM and MMMC and MMCCMC all equally can have the acute pitch accent on the first mora), but syllable closure does affect whether a syllable is light or heavy, as shown by scansion. But in Latin stress position depends entirely on whether a certain syllable is light or heavy - so we should not call it moraic. Peter