468 ON LATIN PRONUNCIATIOK. 



it seems unobjectionable, if designed merely to explain accentuation, 

 and if it be conceded that the quantity of one. syllable only can be 

 inferred in certain cases with tolerable accuracy. The faulty applica- 

 tion of the laws of accents has led modern theorists far astray on the 

 subject of Latin pronunciation. Their mistakes have resulted in the 

 penult being considered the only syllable whose quantity they care to 

 express, whereas it has not been observed that in such cases they are 

 really expressing the accent and inferring the quantity. It is to be 

 lamented that the odeum philologicuvi has so completely blinded edu- 

 cated men as to induce them to sneer at the ideas of quantity enter- 

 tained by those whose patient erudition and honest investigation of the 

 truth are at least equal to their own. 



The second proposal which is the complement of the JSrst is open to 

 the still stronger objection, that it rests upon an arbitrary assumption, 

 neither appropriate nor effective, and for which, it may be added, there 

 is no semblance of authority. If we take the sounds representing the 

 long vowels which I have ventured to mark (Oj e^ i^ Oj u^), there seems 

 no sufficient reason why they should be regarded as differing in point 

 of time from the so-called short vowels (a._, Cj h o^ u^), which can be 

 equally prolonged. There is no difference so far as the expression of 

 quantity is concerned by the mere change of vowel sounds in such 

 words as the following : — movet, laovit ; fructiis, fructus ; bone, beta ; 

 btbo, bimus; labor, labor. According to this theory we ought to say 

 — frigidus, maritimus, homo, domus, cogito, colonus, quis, quis, and 



1 2 2 2 12 21 



so on. Even were this system capable of perfect and universal appli- 

 cationi it could only enable us to infer with probability instead of 

 expressing with accuracy what the Latins meant when they spoke of 

 the quantity of a syllable. At any rate, it could only be serviceable 

 as a supplement to the fallacious method of indicating quantity by 

 accent. In addition to the objection that systems like these are purely 

 factitious — conclusions drawn from suppositions and arbitrary pre- 

 mises — it is only necessary to point out that the sounds of short vowels 

 are generally the same as those which become long by position or 

 dipthongs. The i for instance has the same sound in maritimus and 

 littera ; the e in bone and peudo is, so far as sound is concerned, iden- 

 tical. This objection might, of course, be removred by ascribing to the 

 vowels long by position the sounds of the long vowels, but the insuper- 

 able difficulty would still remain, that such a contrivance would fail 



