Chapter 010Allen and Greenough's Latin GrammarDickinson CollegeChristopher Francese
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Vowels are either long or short
by nature
, and are pronounced accordingly (§ 8
).
A vowel before another vowel or
h
is short: as in
vĭa
,
nĭhil
.
A diphthong is long: as in
aedēs
,
f
oe
dus
. So, also, a vowel derived from a diphthong: as in
exclūdō
(from †
ex-claudō
).
A vowel formed by contraction is long: as in
nīl
(from
nihil
).
A vowel before
ns
,
nf
,
gn
, is long: as in
cōnstāns
,
īnferō
,
māgnus
.
But the quantity of the vowel before
gn
is not certain in all cases.
A vowel before
nd
,
nt
, is regularly short: as in
amandus
,
amant
.
In this book all vowels known to be long are marked (
ā
,
ē
, etc.), and short vowels are left unmarked (
a
,
e
, etc.). Vowels marked with both signs at once (
ā˘
,
ē˘
, etc.) occur sometimes as long and sometimes as short.
The Romans sometimes marked vowel length by a stroke above the letter (called an apex), as, Á; and sometimes the vowel was doubled to indicate length. An I made higher than the other letters was occasionally used for ī. But none of these devices came into general use