Syllable weight

In

A heavy syllable is a

In moraic theory, heavy syllables are analyzed as containing two morae, light syllables one, and superheavy syllables three.

The distinction between heavy and light syllables plays an important role in the

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Aeneid (Book 1)

An example in Latin:

Arma virumque cano, Troiae qui primus ab oris

Italiam fato profugus Laviniaque venit

(Aeneid 1.1-2)

The first syllable of the first word (arma) is heavy ("long by position") because it contains a short vowel (the A) followed by more than one consonant (R and then M)—and if not for the consonants coming after it, it would be light. The second syllable is light because it contains a short vowel (an A) followed immediately by only one consonant (the V). The next syllable is light for the same reason. The next syllable, the second syllable of the word virumque, is heavy ("long by position") because it contains a short vowel followed by more than one consonant (the M and then the Q).

But, for example, the first syllable of the word Troiae is heavy ("long by nature") because it contains a diphthong, regardless of the sounds coming after it. Likewise, the fifth syllable of the second line (the first of the word fato) is heavy ("long by nature") because it contains a long vowel, and it will be heavy no matter what sounds come after. (The word "Italiam" is a special case, in that poets treat it as having a long-by-nature first syllable which it actually has not, in order to make it fit somehow.)

Terming a syllable "long by position" is equivalent to noting that the syllable ends with a consonant (a closed syllable), because Latin and Greek speakers in the classical era pronounced a consonant as part of a preceding syllable only when it was followed by other consonants, due to the rules of Greek and Latin syllabification. In a consonant cluster, one consonant ends the preceding syllable and the rest start the following syllable. For example, Latin syllabifies volat as vo-lat but dignus as dig-nus and monstrum as mon-strum.

Exceptions and additions

A few exceptions to and elaborations of the above rules of heavy and light syllables:

• The Greek letters ζ, ξ, ψ (
  psi) and their Roman equivalents Z and X (and PS) were pronounced as two consonants, so they lengthen by position despite being represented by a single character.^[4][5]
  For example, the first syllable of gaza is heavy, despite the short vowel followed only by one written consonant, because the Z was pronounced as two consonants and lengthens the syllable by position.
• Sanskrit meter also treats the letters अं and अः (the anusvara and visarga) as full consonants for purposes of syllable weight, despite being classified typically as vowels.^[3][6]
• The combination
  aspirate-nasal or voiced consonant
  -nasal did not cohere and always lengthened by position.
• In Homer and his imitators, the digamma (ϝ), a sound defunct in the standard Ionic alphabet and lost from pronunciation by the classical period, was still felt enough to lengthen by position, even though it is normally not written in the Homeric poems. For example, in the line ἦ τοι μὲν τόδε καλὸν ἀκουέμεν ἐστὶν ἀοιδοῦ (Odyssey, 9.3), the first syllable of καλὸν is long, even though it has a short vowel followed by only one consonant, because the word was originally καλϝὸν, and the digamma was still felt enough to lengthen the syllable by position. Since the digamma was being lost during the time when the Homeric poems were composed, recited, and written down, its effects are sometimes not felt, so that words that would have contained a digamma sometimes do not show its effects.

As noted above, the number and order of heavy and light syllables in a line of poetry (together with

• Meter (poetry)
• Stress (linguistics)

References