Latin stress question
  • MarkThompson
    Posts: 768
    I was looking ahead at some upcoming communion antiphons. In two weeks' time (OF) we have Dico vobis, and in the course of glancing through the psalm verses from Communio (here) I saw how Ps. 31:7 & 10 were written:

         Tu es refúgium meum, a tribulatióne conservábis me; exsultatiónibus salútis circúmdabis me.

         Multi dolóres ímpii, sperántem autem in Dómino misericórdia circúmdabit.

    Gah! To my ear the stress on the antepenult in "circúmdabis/t" sounds horribly wrong. (As wrong as "consérvabis" would have sounded in v. 7.) If my recollection is correct (and I think it is) the stress should be on the penult ("circumdábis/t"). But googling the relevant phrases -- with circúmdabis vs. circumdábis; circúmdabit vs. circumdábit -- shows significantly more results for the antepenult-stressed versions, though non-negligible results for the penult-stressed, such as this 1725 Breviarium Benedictinum.

    Anybody able to provide a convincing explanation/citation one way or the other? Dō, dāre; the future is dābis, whence circumdābis, and if the vowel in the penult is long then that syllable should receive the stress.

    Right? This does, I should stress emphasize, affect the pointing of the verses in question.
  • alex
    Posts: 6
    The dictionary tells it is not "dāre", but "dăre":
    image?
    Thanked by 1MarkThompson
  • MarkThompson
    Posts: 768
    Heh, that's funny. The Oxford Latin Dictionary says the same. Quite remarkable; I have never considered the existence of a first-conjugation verb with an infinitive not ending in -āre. But sure enough, it turns out that do is irregular:

    image

    That was ... easy.

    image
  • gregpgregp
    Posts: 632
    I believe this is covered by the principle that compound words are divided by their elements, so that the word would be felt as circum + dabis, and the accent would still fall on the penult.
  • MarkThompson
    Posts: 768
    That would be correct if the root were a regular first conjugation verb (e.g., stō, stāre), but since the root here is (as it turns out) irregular and has a present stem with a short vowel, dă-, the accent falls back a syllable onto the prefix. Ergo dábit, sed circúmdabit. It still sounds atrocious to me, but I have to chalk that up to a fault of mine own.
    Thanked by 1gregp
  • Ioannes Andreades
    Posts: 310
    You're right, Mark. do, dare is not a normal 1st conjugation verb. The stress falls on the antepenult of circumdabis, since the penult is short. I find this sounds no stranger than the (correct) accent of Spiritui falling on the antepenult as well (a word that I often hear receiving incorrectly a primary stress on the first and a secondary stress on the third).
    Thanked by 1gregp
  • Liam
    Posts: 5,086
    Latin is full of stress.
    Thanked by 3Adam Wood Ben IanW
  • hartleymartin
    Posts: 1,447
    When chanting it doesn't tend to make all that much of a difference. I've seen plenty of antiphons where there is an ictus (the little accent above the vowel) on a single punctus and then the normally short syllable has several neumes on it.

    If chanting in a Psalm-tone then it makes a difference, as any neumes with the ictus should be given a very, very slight emphasis in making it ever so slightly longer and slightly louder. I explain it to singer by saying "lean into to note."
Add a Comment