Re: [tied] the rhythm and stress in Latin

See my posting explaining the difference between "verse feet" and "phonological feet". In theories of stress that make use of foot-constructing algorhythms, extrametricality means that the stress rule ignores the final syllable. But see what happens in words of the structure LH (L = light, H = heavy):

L <H> (<H> marked as extrametrical)

... and a stalemate results: ('L) is not an acceptable foot shape (it violates the so-called minimality requirement, which bans feet consisting of a single light syllable), but at least one foot must be constructed in order for stress to be assigned. One possible solution is to _cancel_ extrametricality and parse the word as ('LH), which is not ideal yet but at least spares us a violation of minimality. It would be still better to have ('LL) instead, and that is what iambic shortening gives us.

Piotr

----- Original Message -----
From: P&G

To: cybalist@yahoogroups.com

Sent: Thursday, January 31, 2002 9:45 PM

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

>...in disyllabic words with a light penult the final syllable was attracted into the stress foot .... and was no longer extrametrical. I don't dispute your statement here, but can you give any evidence that the final syllable "was attracted into the stress foot"? And your statement that the final syllable was "no longer extrametrical" puzzles me. If you mean as you used it earlier in your posting, you must mean its presence helps determine the placing of the stress accent, which is clearly untrue. So what did you mean? You are of course aware of the overwhelming preponderance of iambic words at the end of pentameter lines, where the easily avoidable pattern <stressed-short + unstressed-long> appears to have been deliberately chosen and enjoyed? Peter