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--- In romanceconlang@yahoogroups.com, "Christian Thalmann <cinga@g...>" <cinga@g...> wrote: > --- In romanceconlang@yahoogroups.com, "Etherman23 <etherman23@y...>" > <etherman23@y...> wrote: > > Make sure you completely forget the nonsensical custom of the > English language to call its estranged diphthongised vowel > phonemes "long". Yes, English is quite evil. > In Latin, what we mean by a long vowel *is* a long vowel -- > spoken for a markedly longer duration than a short one, but > with the same quality. So far so good. > Under no circumstances should you allow anglicised > pronunciations of Latin words tempt you to the Dark Side... > The zodiac sign Gemini is pronounced "jemmy-nigh" in English, > but the Latin |geminî| (long i at the end) is pronounced > "ghemmy-nee"! So let me get this straight. The first i is pronounced with short quality and short quantity, and the second is with long quality and long quantity? So the two always correlate? > > However, it doesn't do it consistently. > > I doubt that... see below. A quick example would be abdi(ca-ti(o where i( is a short i and a- is a long a. Notice that the first a and the o are not marked for length. So I look at my rules for determining vowel length: 1) A vowel is short if a) it's followed by another vowel or h b) it's followed by nd or nt 2) A vowel is long if a) it's derived from a diphthong b) it's followed by ns, nf, or sometimes gn c) it's formed from a contraction 3) A diphthong is long Neither of the two unmarked vowels fall under these rules. > > It also gives several rules for > > determining quantity, but these don't cover all possible cases and > > quite frequently disagree with the diacritics. > > You're confusing stress with length. Those several rules > determine on which syllable the stress falls. Both long and > short vowels can carry the stress, and both can be unstressed. > Again, this doesn't influence the vowel quality. There's a separate set of rules for determining long and short syllables. That part actually makes sense to me :)