hómo; ā́cer.
([2.]) Words of more than two syllables have the accent on the penult when that syllable is long ([177]); otherwise on the antepenult: as,
palū́ster, onústus ([177]); mulíebris, génetrīx ([178]); árborēs, árbutus, gladíolus.
[87]. A short penult retains the accent in the genitive and vocative with a single ī from stems in -io- ([456], [459]): as, genitive, cōnsílī; impérī; genitive or vocative, Vergílī; Valérī; Mercúrī. For calefácis, &c., see [394].
[88]. In a few words which have lost a syllable the accent is retained on the last syllable; such are (1.) compounds of the imperatives dīc and dūc ([113]): as, ēdū́c; (2.) nominatives of proper names in -ās and -īs for -ātis and -ītis: as, Arpīnā́s, for Arpīnā́tis; Laenā́s; Maecēnā́s; Quirī́s; Samnī́s; also nostrā́s, vostrā́s; (3.) words compounded with the abbreviated ([113]) enclitics -c for -ce and -n for -ne: as, illī́c; tantṓn; audīstī́n (for the shortening of the final syllable: as, vidén, dost see?, see [129]); (4.) audī́t, contracted from audīvit ([154], [893]). The Latin grammarians prescribe the circumflex ([90]) for all these long syllables.
[EARLIER RECESSIVE ACCENT.]
[89]. In the preliterary period of the Latin language, the accent tended to go as far from the end of the word as possible (recessive accent). Thus, while the classical accentuation is inimī́cus, the older period accented ínimīcus. In literary Latin this early recessive accent has survived, only in Plautus’s accentuation of words of the form ⏑ ⏑ ⏑ ⏓ (proceleusmatic or fourth paeon, see [2521]), in which he stresses the first syllable: as, fácilius (classical facílius); vóluerat (classical volúerat). But in many instances the early recessive accent may be traced in literary Latin by the phonetic changes which it produced ([102 ff.]).
[90]. Musical element. The native Latin grammarians slight the stress accentuation and pay much attention instead to the variations in pitch. But they are so greatly dependent on their Greek models that they are unsafe guides in this matter. It is, however, probable that a stressed vowel was uttered on a higher key (acute) than an unstressed vowel (grave), and that in certain syllables the long, accented vowel showed a rise and fall (circumflex): as, illîc ([88]).
[91]. The force of the Latin stress accent must have varied at different periods and in different localities, as it now varies in the Romance countries. The early recessive accent seems to have been fairly emphatic; but the stress in classical Latin was probably weak and the difference between accented and unaccented syllables was much less marked than it is in English.