ARTICLE II—OF QUANTITY.
QUANTITY, or TIME in pronunciation, is the measure of sounds or syllables in regard to their duration; and, by way of distinction, is supposed ever to determine them to be either long or short.[471]
The absolute time in which syllables are uttered, is very variable, and must be different to suit different subjects, passions, and occasions; but their relative length or shortness may nevertheless be preserved, and generally must be, especially in reciting poetry.
Our long syllables are chiefly those which, having sounds naturally capable of being lengthened at pleasure, are made long by falling under some stress either of accent or of emphasis. Our short syllables are the weaker sounds, which, being the less significant words, or parts of words, are uttered without peculiar stress.
OBS.—As quantity is chiefly to be regarded in the utterance of poetical compositions, this subject will be farther considered under the head of Versification.
ARTICLE III.—OF ACCENT.
ACCENT, as commonly understood, is the peculiar stress which we lay upon some particular syllable of a word, whereby that syllable is distinguished from and above the rest; as, gram'-mar, gram-ma'-ri-an.
Every word of more than one syllable, has one of its syllables accented; and sometimes a compound word has two accents, nearly equal in force; as, e'ven-hand'ed, home'-depart'ment.[472]
Besides the chief or primary accent, when the word is long, for the sake of harmony or distinctness, we often give a secondary or less forcible accent to an other syllable; as, to the last of tem'-per-a-ture', and to the second of in dem'-ni-fi-ca'-tion.
"Accent seems to be regulated, in a great measure, by etymology. In words from the Saxon, the accent is generally on the root; in words from the learned languages, it is generally on the termination; and if to these we add the different accent we lay on some words, to distinguish them from others, we seem to have the three great principles of accentuation; namely, the radical, the terminational, and the distinctive."—Walker's Principles, No. 491; L. Murray's Grammar, 8vo, p. 236.