Syllable Quantity in Late Latin Clausulae

Abstract

IN 1960 SILVIA JANNACCONE WARNED that le clausole di Ammiano ... da sole non permettono deduzioni di ordine fonetico e morfologico scientificamente soddisfacenti. ' In 1977 Devine and Stephens concurred for late Latin clausulae in general as regards the hypotheses of Harmon and Hagendahl concerning qu.2 The statistically controlled demonstration by Hall and Oberhelman of the linguistic reality and prevalence of the cursus mixtus from Arnobius to Ennodius,3 however, suggests a new research design which, I believe, not only rehabilitates late Latin clausulae as an important source of phonological evidence, but, at the very least, establishes a number of striking regularities that must be considered by any student of Latin prose rhythm. In the cursus mixtus system of prose rhythm clausulae conform to both one of the accentual cursus (planus, tardus, or velox; see below) and one of the quantitative types (cretic-spondee, dicretic, cretic-tribrach, or ditrochee). In this paper S indicates a linguistic syllable, S a stressed syllable, S a heavy syllable, S a light syllable, S a syllable that occurs in anceps position, # a word boundary, and (#) an optional word boundary. Accordingly the (accentually defined) planus may be represented as (#)SSSSS#, e.g., mente