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