Weak Position (poetry) - Vowels in Weak Position

Vowels in Weak Position

Although no one can be certain what the phonological significance of vowel "length" or "value" was in ancient Greek, the rules of stress placement in literature of the Homeric and Attic eras are relatively well understood, not least through surviving commentary by the Latin grammarians. Some unstressed syllables seem to have admitted two pronunciations; in particular, the common combination of a short vowel followed by a stop and a liquid (as in the words δάκρυ, πατρός, ὅπλον, and τέκνον and the phrase τί δρᾷ) allows, but does not require, that the syllable containing the vowel be considered "long by position".

In Homeric Greek, the vowel in such a syllable was usually grammatically long, but could be grammatically short, depending on the needs of the meter (vice versa in Attic Greek). When short, such vowels are said to have, or be in, weak position.

Poetry in Classical Latin also took advantage of short vowels in weak position. The following examples show the same word scanned in two different ways in a single line (the diacritics on the relevant vowels indicate the length of the entire syllable, as required by the meter):

• quae pătribus pātres tradunt ab stirpe profecta (Lucr. 4.1222)
• gnatum ante ora pătris, pātrem qui obtruncat ad aras (Verg. A. 2.663)
• et Lycum nīgris oculis nĭgroque// crine decorum (Hor. Carm. 1.32.11f)
• et primo similis volŭcri, mox vera volūcris (Ov. Met. 13.607)