Talk:cuius

Vowel length

@Metaknowledge, could you check the latest edit? Both references list cujus with a macron, plus the Spanish and Portuguese descendants suggest a long u. If it is correct, the HWL, the pronunciaiton and cujus need to be fixed as well. — Ungoliant ^(falai) 02:49, 6 March 2018 (UTC)

The tradition in Latin lexicography is to use a macron to indicate the geminated /j/, which would otherwise be impossible to express. Given that our entry has the correct reconstructed classical IPA, I am unsure of whether or not we should use the macron, but tradition would indicate that we should, and Latin students who glance quickly at a headword when doing scansion would presumably prefer that. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 03:14, 6 March 2018 (UTC)

@Metaknowledge @Ungoliant MMDCCLXIV Checked De Vaan: he marks the possessive with a long ū - presumably based on Romance, - but the Genitive with a short one - presumably because that's etymologically expected. I surmise that the situation was parallel to Juppiter/Jūpiter etc with the -s- before consonant (*kʷosjos) producing two variant reflexes. Not sure if we can do anything about this - a separate explanation, perhaps?

I take issue with the rest of the argument, however. This same faulty tradition of not distinguishing between vowel length and syllable weight also prescribes we put macrons over both vowels in jactant - the Latin orthography doesn't mark that either. It doesn't mark that the first syllable in Hadria is heavy while being short in lacrima, and variable in other such cases. There are many other things the Latin orthography cannot express - and as a Latin student, you learn those things to be able to scan properly. Luckily, this particular rule is trivial, and the students have the IPA to aid them - it automatically takes the double consonant into account. It's not the dictionary's job to make up for someone's lack of knowledge while simultaneously misleading everyone else, and as such this practice has been completely rejected in the modern scholarly tradition, including dictionaries. It might be explained inside the entry instead.

I witnessed the damaging effects of this orthographic tradition literally a few days ago when a 6-year Latin student was dumbfounded to find out that vowel length and syllable weight were different things. Could we take this thing to a higher place to arrive at a consensus applicable across the whole range of such words on the website? It really pains me to see wiktionary sacrifice its quality by following a misleading and outdated tradition - it has lead to such abominations as **ōbiciō, complete with the erroneous automatic IPA. Brutal Russian (talk) 17:41, 10 March 2018 (UTC)

@Brutal Russian: I've corrected obiciō; coniciō and reiciō need the same treatment. --Per utramque cavernam (talk) 18:14, 10 March 2018 (UTC)

Done, including their derivatives; hopefully I'm not aggravating anyone by doing that. There's quite a few more cases of the intervocalic -jj- confused with the long vowel (and in some others it's unclear which it is, or if indeed both — I believe Pompeii is one). Brutal Russian (talk) 19:01, 10 March 2018 (UTC)

@Brutal Russian, Per utramque cavernam:

As for "this practice has been completely rejected in the modern scholarly tradition, including dictionaries": That's not correct. Spellings like "cūius" (gen.) and "māior" still occur (while spellings like "ōbiciō" which were at wiktionary maybe never were common).

As for "while simultaneously misleading": Unmarked i-spellings (like cuius, maior) are misleading as are makron-marked i-spellings (like cūius, māior). A better solution could be to use another diacritic (which has to be mentioned at WT:About Latin), like Allen & Greenough (A&G) using ^.

Quote from A&G: "A syllable whose vowel is a, e, o, or u, followed by consonant i, is long whether the vowel itself is long or short: as, â-iō, mâ-ior, pê-ius. In such cases the length of the syllable is indicated in this book by a circumflex on the vowel."
Though: "In some compounds of iaciō (as, in-iciō) the consonant i of the simple verb was probably pronounced (though not written). [...] In such cases the length of the syllable is not indicated in this book by a circumflex on the vowel."
Though: "Later poets [....] as if the verb began with a vowel: (1) cūr an|nōs ŏbĭ|cis (Claud. iv C. H. 264)".

Considering iacio-compounds, something like *cuîus, *maîor, *inîciō/*obîciō (besides later iniciō/obiciō) might be better than A&G's cûius, mâior, iniciō/obiciō, or common practice's cūius, māior, iniciō/obiciō, or cuius, maior, iniciō/obiciō. (Of course, the diacritic shouldn't overlap with a possible diacritic for unknown vowel length as it might be used for obscure, Medieval or New Latin terms like găsum/gāsum. BTW as example, at Finish Nuntii Latini it was given as "gāsum", but changed to "gasum" in 2016, and now words from 2014 are gone from the page.) -84.161.48.152 14:00, 12 March 2018 (UTC)