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Historical Linguistics 2015: Selected papers from the 22nd International Conference on Historical Linguistics, Naples, 27-31 July 2015
Edited by Michela Cennamo and Claudia Fabrizio
[Current Issues in Linguistic Theory 348] 2019
► pp. 27–56

Chapter 2
The use of the past to explain the past

Roman grammarians and the collapse of vowel quantity

This paper aims to demonstrate the caveats called for in the reconstruction of the so-called quantity collapse from Late Latin to Pre-Romance. The Uniformitarian Principle does not necessarily require the inspection and explanation of “bad data”. The past, in other words, is not always aligned with our predictive synchronic paradigms. As a matter of fact, a rather significant number of passages by the ancient grammarians shed light on the mechanisms which led to the neutralization of prosodic feature [±long] in spoken Latin stressed syllables. The testimonia of Consentius, Pompeius, and Sacerdos all hint at an interesting and unexpected solution for the reconstruction of the aforementioned phonological process. Ultimately, the overall picture emerging from the metalinguistic testimonies allows us to formulate an alternative hypothesis to the macro-structural thesis on Romance Quantity currently considered part of mainstream Romance Linguistics. This work demonstrates that the very first outcome of the collapse of vowel quantity in spoken Latin was a neutralization, which surfaced as a general lengthening of stressed vowels, both in heavy and light syllables.
Keywords: historical phonology, Late Latin, vocalic isochrony, Roman grammarians, anti-uniformitarian principle
Article outline
  • 1.Historical linguistics and the anti-uniformitarian principle
  • 2.The Quantitätskollaps in Late Latin
  • 3.The Quantitätskollaps in the Roman grammarians
  • 4.The mainstream positions in the Quantitätskollaps controversy
  • 5.An alternative interpretation of the testimonia: Lengthening and shortening both in closed and open syllables
  • 6.Vocalic isochrony in Late Latin
  • 7.Augustine’s De musica and the stressed syllables
  • 8.Epilogue: Robin G. Collingwood and the historical “bad data”
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 10 September 2019
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/cilt.348.02man
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