On the Accentuation of the Latin Words with Enclitics
On the Accentuation of the Latin Words with Enclitics

Summary/Abstract: The article is a small contribution to the earlier held discussion on accentuating the words with enclitics. It agrees with the opinion of the scholars (e.g. Allen 1973) according to whom the words with enclitics are accentuated as a whole, but, contrary to the comments by ancient grammarians (and the way the rule is described in contemporary grammar books), not on the last syllable preceding the enclitic, but consistently according to the penultima law. However, this conception is – based on the partial excerption of Plautus’s iambic and trochaic verses, and thus presuming that these verses show the coincidence of ictus and accent – slightly modified in the sense that (here in contrast to Allen’s opinion) the counting of penultima and antepenultima depends on whether the final vowel of the enclitic undergoes elision or not.

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