The rules which grammarians have given, respecting the Greek accents, arc very perplexed, and liable to many exceptions. The whole difficulty of the matter, say Messrs de Port Royal, consists in two points; first, in knowing the quantity of the ultimate and penultimate ; and, secondly, in knowing on what syllable the words should have their elevation by nature; because, even supposing the same quantity, the elevation may not be the same. Thus, in the antepenultimate is acute; but in c'eygetilrd, the penultimate. The utmost latitude of the acute accent, among the Greeks, was, that it might occupy some one of three syllables, the ultimate, penultimate, or antepenultimate. Among the Romans, the latitude was not so great; for it necessa rily occupied either the penultimate or antepenultimate. Among them, too, the rules for placing it were 1, (Ty precise ; ix. that, in dissyllables, it always occupied the penult, or first syllable ; in polysyllables it occupied the penult, if it were long, and, if it were short, the ante penult. (See Diomedes de ?ecent. lib. ii. and Quinct. last. lib. i. c. 5.) In Latin words, it is well known, that the seeenttral marks served to distinguish the an ;ming conveyed ; and, though disused in the English, they have been retained in the French for a similar purpose, or for marking the pronunciation. In some Greek words, they undoubtedly have a like effect ; thus, Siva denotes a goddess., and .3ia a show, with no other difference than that between the acute and the grave accent. Thus, also, accented on the second syllable, deno ted, slain by a mother; but accented on the third, meant a matricide. In most cases, however, the effect of the Greek accents must have been very differ ent from this.
Various arguments have been adduced to prove, that the purpose or the Greek accents was to indicate the stress, or emphasis of the voice, which is the effect that we now denote by the term accent ; since, by an accent ed syllable, we mean, in fact, nothing more than an em phatic syllable. All polysyllables, it has been observed, required one acute or circumflex Greek accent ; ours require one emphasis. The accent was never removed farther back, by the ancient Greeks, than the antepenult syllable ; neither is our emphasis, except in a few cases, where it resembles the practice of the modern Greeks. The ancient accent was invariably fixed upon a particu lar syllable of a word; so is our emphasis. It was changed, however, to another syllable, in derivative words, differing in length ; or in similar words, differing in sense ; so is our emphasis precisely. The Greek circumflex was never placed on any short syllable, nor farther hack than the penult ; (un• long syllables, i. e. our long vowels and diphthongs, are gencu'ally emphatic, and are pronounced with a circumflex, or rising and falling inflexion of the voice.
But, says Mr Sheridan, our accent, or emphatic pro nunciation of syllables, has the effect of lengthening the vowel, or syllable, which is accented, while the Greek accent often falls upon a short vowel; and therefore, upon this supposition, would be destructive of the rythm, or proportional length of the syllables of words. It is, indeed, true, that the laying the stress of the voice upon the vowel of a syllable, renders that syllable long, as in Scc.; but it is equally true, as is ad mitted by the same author, that, if the stress be laid, not upon the vowel, but upon the consonant which fol lows it, the syllable may continue short, as in habit, bat tle, borrow, &c. It may, indeed, be supposed, that, in such cases, the accented syllable is lengthened by the virtual repetition of the accented consonant, b, t, or r ; but, in fact, we seldom redouble a letter in pronuncia tion, even when it is written double. It is only in such compounds as or where a mute e intervenes, as in supineness, that this takes place. Thus, an ac
cented syllable may be long or short, according as the vowel, or the consonant which follows it, is rendered emphatic ; and we may observe by the ways, that it is the genius of the Scotch pronunciation to dwell upon the vowels, and of the English to accent the consonants, Thus, instead of the English hiiibit, and hcit' tle, a Scotch man naturally says habit, and The English, therefore, abounds in the acute accent, the Scotch in the grave, and, it may be added, the Irish in the cir cumflex.
From these observations, we think it clearly follows, that a syllable may be rendered and yet con tinue short ; and, on this account, the metrical propor tion of syllables may be retained, although the accent (supposing it the same with emphasis,) be placed on those which are short, and not on those which are long. Thus, the proportional length of all the syllables in ti..11'ke>6701+05 may continue the same, whether we place the emphasis, or accent, on its second or its third syllable, if, in this last case, we lay the stress on the Y and not on the a.* By this variation of the accent, we are able to mark the change of meaning of the word ; and thus we discern one use of the accents, corresponding to the purpose for which they were said to have been invented by Aristophanes of Byzantium ; namely, to facilitate the progress of foreigners in the proper pronunciation of Greek words.
It must be acknowledged, however, that there is a passage in the treatise of Dionysius of Halicarnassus concerning composition, which is rather inconsistent with this doctrine concerning the use of the Greek ac cents, and is more favourable to the system of Mr Steele. " The melody of common speech," says this critic, "is measured nearly by one interval, that, namely, which is commonly called the cliatenta. It does not rise more * This appears to be an unnecessary distinction ; and indeed, it may be demonstrated not to be founded in fact, which may easily be done by comparing the pro nunciation of the long accented Italian syllables with that of the short ones of the English language that are likewise accented. Take, for instance, the Italian word Bello, in which the e is pronounced very long and strong ly accented, while at the same time the two //s are suc cessively articulated in the clearest and most distinct manner. Take, on the other side, the English word folly, in which the o, though accented, is pronounced extreme ly short. If the accent were really on the 1 that follows it, that consonant would, as in the Italian language, be arti culated distinctly and separately from the other I; instead of which the two //s are blended and articulated toge ther as if there were only one, and produce but a weak liquid sound ; which is pronounced by an English organ with not half the strength that is given by an Italian speaker to one of the two Its that are contained in the word which we have adduced by way of example. We must acknowledge with great diffidence, that we do not perceive any necessity for the distinction which is at tempted to be here established ; nor can we see any rea son why a short vowel may not as well be accented, or in other words, strongly and emphatically uttered as a long one. We therefore venture to think that in short syllables, as well as in those that are long, the emphatic accent is really placed on the vowel itself, and not on the consonant by which it is followed. Grammarians have too long blended together the ideas of accent and quantity, and seem to be now seeking pretexts or apolo gies for keeping them separate. To us it appears that no two things can be more distinct, and that there is no need of calling in the aid of the consonant to prove the 9r:centuation of a short syllable. DUPONCEAU.