|
Main
- books.jibble.org
My Books
- IRC Hacks
Misc. Articles
- Meaning of Jibble
- M4 Su Doku
- Computer Scrapbooking
- Setting up Java
- Bootable Java
- Cookies in Java
- Dynamic Graphs
- Social Shakespeare
External Links
- Paul Mutton
- Jibble Photo Gallery
- Jibble Forums
- Google Landmarks
- Jibble Shop
- Free Books
- Intershot Ltd
|
books.jibble.org
Previous Page
| Next Page
Page 10
STEMS IN -NO. The many words of this class are a grief to the
classifier, who seeks in vain for reasons. Thus 'german' and 'germane'
have the same source and travelled, it seems, by the same road through
France. The Latin _hyacinth[)i]nus_ and _adamant[)i]nus_ are parallel
words, yet Milton has 'hyacinthin' for the one and 'adamantine' for
the other. One classification goes a little way. Thus 'human' and
'urban' must have come through French, 'humane' and 'urbane' direct
from Latin. On the other hand while 'meridian' and 'quartan' are
French, 'publican', 'veteran', and 'oppidan' are Latin. Words with
a long _i_, if they came early through France, shorten the vowel,
as 'doctrine', 'discipline', 'medicine', and 'masculine', while
'genuine', though a later word, followed them, but 'anserine' and
'leonine' did not. Disyllables seem to prefer the stress on the
ultima, as 'divine', 'supine', but even these are not consistent. Some
critics would scan Cassio's words
The d�vine Desdemona,
though Shakespeare nowhere else has this stress, while Shelley has.
Shelley, too, has
She cannot know how well the s�pine slaves
Of blind authority read the truth of things.
The grammatical term, too, is 's�pine'. Later introductions also have
this stress, as 'b�vine', 'c�nine', '�quine'. The last word is not
always understood. At any rate Halliwell-Phillips, referring to a
well-known story of Shakespeare's youth, says that the poet probably
attended the theatre 'in some equine capacity'. As it is agreed that
'bovine' and 'equine' lengthen the former vowel, we ought by analogy
to say 'c[=a]nine', as probably most people do. Words of more than two
syllables have the stress on the antepenultima and the vowel is short,
as in 'libertine', 'adulterine', but of course '[=u]terine'. When
heavy consonants bring the stress on to the penultima, the _i_ is
shortened, as in 'clandest[)i]n(e)', 'intest[)i]n(e)', and so in like
disyllables, as 'doctr[)i]n(e)'. The modern words 'morphin(e)' and
'strychnin(e)', coined, the one from Morpheus and the other from the
Greek name of the plant known to botanists as _Withania somnifera_,
correctly follow 'doctrine' in shortening the _i_, though another
pronunciation is sometimes heard.
STEMS IN -TUDIN. These shorten the antepenultima, as 'plenitude',
'solitude', with the usual exceptions, such as 'fortitude'.
STEMS IN -TION. These words retain the suffix, which in early days
was disyllabic, as it sometimes is in Shakespeare, for instance in
Portia's
Before a friend of this descripti�n
Shall lose a hair through Bassanio's fault.
Thus they came under the 'alias' rule, and what is now the penultimate
vowel is long unless it be _i_. Examples are 'nation', 'accretion',
'emotion', 'solution', while _i_ is shortened in 'petition',
'munition', and the like, and left short in 'admonition' and
others. In military use an exception is made by 'ration', but the
pronunciation is confined to one sense of the word, and is new at
that. I remember old soldiers of George III who spoke of 'r[=a]tions'.
Perhaps the ugly change is due to French influence.
Originally the adjectives from these words must have lengthened the
fourth vowel from the end long, as n[=a]t[)i][)o]nal, but when _ti_
became _sh_ they came to follow the rule of Latin trisyllables in our
pronunciation.
STEMS IN -IC. Of these words we have a good many, both Latin and
Greek. Those that came direct keep the stress on the vowel which was
antepenultimate and is in English penultimate, and this vowel is short
whatever its original quantity. Examples are 'aquatic', 'italic',
'Germanic'. Words that came through French threw the stress back, as
'l�natic'. Skeat says that 'fanatic' came through French, but he can
hardly be right, for the pronunciation 'f�natic' is barely three score
years old. There is no inverted stress in Milton's
Fan�tic Egypt and her priests.
As for 'unique' it is a modern borrowing from French, and of late
'�ntique' or '�ntic', as Shakespeare has it, has followed in one of
its senses the French use. It is a pity in face of Milton's
Previous Page
| Next Page
|
|