dbo:abstract
- Brevis brevians, also known as iambic shortening or correptio iambica, is a feature of early Latin verse, in which a pair of syllables which are theoretically short + long (u –) can count in the metre as a pair of short syllables (u u). The plural is breves breviantes. The main types of iambic shortening are as follows: (1) commonly used two-syllable words such as ibi, ubi, nisi, quasi, ego, modo, mihi, bene, male in which the final vowel is usually short even in classical Latin; (2) the first two syllables of phrases starting with a two-syllable word such as abī sīs "go, please", volō scīre "I want to know", apud forum "at the forum", recēns nātum "newly born"; (3) the first two syllables of longer words accented on the 3rd syllable, such as voluptātem "pleasure" and senectūte "old age"; (4) the first two syllables of phrases starting from a monosyllable such as quid est quod metuās? "what are you afraid of?", quod ille dīcit "what he is saying", ab exercitū "from the army", tib(i) īrātus "angry with you"; (5) more rarely, and mainly in anapaestic metres, it can occur at the end of words of cretic rhythm (– u –) such as nēminī plūra "to no one more" or across word boundaries as in ab nēmin(e) accipiēt "he will receive from no one". Shortening usually takes place in the context of a phrase. Thus the -ī of abī is usually long at the end of a sentence but it is usually shortened in the phrase abi sīs. Shortening only takes place after a short syllable, hence the name brevis breviāns, which is short for (syllaba) brevis breviāns (syllabam quae sequitur) "a short syllable which shortens the syllable which follows". The term brevis breviāns dates back to the 19th century, but it does not go back to antiquity, since no ancient grammarian or metrician discusses the phenomenon. The alternative name "iambic shortening" derives from the fact that sequences like volō or quid est are metrically iambs (u –). Shortening does not occur after a long syllable, as in crēdō, or after a pair of short syllables such as in videō or redeō. Brevis breviāns is frequent in the comedies of Plautus and Terence, and in the fragments of other poets of the 2nd century BC, but, except in words of the first type above, it is generally not found in poets of the classical period such as Virgil and Ovid. In the comedies it particularly affects words in frequent use such as mihī, ille, est, apud. Since the comedies were well known for imitating ordinary speech, it has been argued that it reflects the actual pronunciation of colloquial Latin. However, some scholars believe that only the first type is a genuine phenomenon of Latin speech, and that the other types are purely metrical. Parallels to iambic shortening can be found in modern languages such as English. But there is some controversy about whether modern languages provide a genuine parallel to what some scholars see as a metrical phenomenon not caused by accent. (en)
rdfs:comment
- Brevis brevians, also known as iambic shortening or correptio iambica, is a feature of early Latin verse, in which a pair of syllables which are theoretically short + long (u –) can count in the metre as a pair of short syllables (u u). The plural is breves breviantes. Shortening usually takes place in the context of a phrase. Thus the -ī of abī is usually long at the end of a sentence but it is usually shortened in the phrase abi sīs. (en)