Re: [tied] French Vowel Length

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Miguel Carrasquer <mcv@...> wrote:

> On Sat, 24 Apr 2004 12:38:10 +0000, Richard Wordingham
> <richard.wordingham@...> wrote:

> >For <métre>, I
> >assume the syllabification was me-tre rather than met-re.

Whoops! I meant <mètre>, of course.

>
> It's of course a learnèd word, from the Greek, and
> post-revolutionary.

As approximately 39.37 inches, yes. But as a term in in poetry,
it's been around since Old French, and Onions sees fits to derive
the 14th Century appearance of the word in English from French
rather than Latin.

> But generally in French (as in all
> Romance), a vowel is "free" before muta cum liquida (ca-pra
> > chèvre, not cap-ra > *chav-re).

Which seems curiuous when one recalls that one of the stress changes
from Classical Latin to Proto-Romance is that vowels before muta cum
liquida came to count as closed! (
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/files/Italic+Romance/norberg-
briefhistory.pdf pp5-6)

Richard.