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The Additional Short Syllables in Ovid

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 April 2026

Margaret Whilldin Herr
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This dissertation on the Additional Short Syllables in Ovid was suggested by a statement made by Dr. John F. Gummere in his dissertation, that a very convenient way to get a short syllable in place of a long one was to substitute the plural for the singular in the nominative and accusative cases of neuter nouns. He refers to the figures of R. B. Steele, who has shown that fifteen Latin poets have an average of 45 per cent of dactyls in the first four feet of their hexameter, that Ovid has 54.6 per cent of dactyls in his Metamorphoses, and that Vergil has 44.1 per cent of dactyls in his Aeneid. It will be seen that Ovid gained over Vergil 84 short syllables per 100 lines. In Chapter IV it will be seen that in five books of the Metamorphoses and three books of the Aeneid Ovid gained over Vergil 84.6 short syllables per 100 lines. This figure will therefore be used throughout this dissertation. Vergil's percentage has been chosen for comparison with Ovid's, first, because it is so near the average, and second, because Dr. Gummere's figures for the neuter plural in Vergil are available.

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Type
Research Article
Information
Language , Volume 13 , Issue 2-Part4: Language Dissertation No. 25: The Additional Short Syllables in Ovid, April-June , June 1937 , pp. 5 - 31
Copyright
Copyright © 1937 Linguistic Society of America

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References

page 5 note 1 The Neuter Plural in Vergil 6.

page 5 note 2 Variation in the Latin Dactylic Hexameter; Philological Quarterly 5.212-25.

page 5 note 3 Since Ovid has 218.4 dactyls (54.6 per cent of the 400 dactyls possible in the first four feet per 100 lines) and Vergil has 176.4 dactyls (44.1 per cent of 400 dactyls), Ovid gains over Vergil 42.0 dactyls per 100 lines, or 84.0 short syllables per 100 lines.

page 6 note 4 Likes and Dislikes in Elision, and the Vergilian Appendix; TAPA 54.90-1.

page 6 note 5 An 'illogical or 'poetic' plural is 'a plural that is used instead of a singular that is normal to prose, that is, prose uninfluenced by poetry; or a plural that is used instead of a singular that is normal to poetry itself (Gummere, The Neuter Plural in Vergil 5).

page 8 note 1 The Neuter Plural in Vergil 11-14.

page 12 note 1 The term ‘common’ in this dissertation is applied to nouns that occur ten times or oftener. See Chapter II near the beginning.

page 12 note 2 Page 17.

page 12 note 3 The average frequency of nay neuter plural nouns per 100 lines computed for the fifteen books of Ovid's Metamorphoses is 22.5, while that for the five books summarized in Table IV is 23.4. The average frequency of 22.5 has been used in this chapter with disregard of the slight difference, which would not affect the conclusions. A similar variation occurs between the average frequency per 100 lines for the complete works of Vergil (22.3) and for the three books of the Aeneid (23.3) as shown in Table IV. The average frequency of 22.3 has been used in this chapter.

page 13 note 4 Page 17.

page 13 note 5 It is interesting to note from a study of nav neuter plural nouns, pronouns, and adjectives in the fifth foot of Ovid's Metamorphoses that 2003 neuter nouns or pronouns, or 74% of all neuters, either are in the fifth foot (1533) or have a modifying adjective in the fifth foot (470); while only 675 neuter nouns, pronouns, or adjectives, or 26%, have no connection with the fifth foot. In fact, 3104, or 61%, of all neuter nouns, pronouns, and adjectives are found in the fifth foot. In Vergil the percentages are found to be almost the same.

page 14 note 6 From Dr. Kent's statistics it can be seen that final short vowels, which include this short -a of nav neuter plural nouns, are elided by Ovid less than one-half (5.8 per 100 lines in Ovid to 12.6 per 100 lines in Vergil) as often as by Vergil.

page 22 note 1 The term ‘ inflectional’ syllable in this dissertation means only one syllable, the final syllable of a word, although from the historical standpoint it often should be applied to more than one syllable, as in ped-ibus, fec-imus. The addition of an enclitic with vowel elided or unelided does not affect my classification of the final syllable of a word.

page 22 note 2 A penult which becomes an ultima through the elision of a final vowel is not the true ultima of the word in its unelided form, and is therefore considered ‘ non-inflectional’ in this dissertation, cf. the preceding note.

page 23 note 3 All nouns and adjectives are included in 1 and 2.

page 23 note 4 Loss is represented by a minus sign.

page 26 note 5 This study has been made in five books (I, II, V, X, XV) of the Metamorphoses and in three books (I, II, VI) of the Aeneid.

page 26 note 6 A study of the enclitic -que shows that it occurs in Ovid 19.2 times per 100 lines and in Vergil 10.5 times per 100 lines. It is appended to nouns and adjectives much of tener than to verbs, and it is surprising to note that it is appended to other words almost half as often as to nouns and adjectives.

page 27 note 7 See Chapter I, note 4.

page 27 note 8 Incomplete words in this dissertation mean half words. Therefore, in the first four feet Ovid used 464 words, 442 complete words and 22 ( of 44) incomplete words and Vergil used 463, 438 complete words and 25 ( of 50) incomplete words.

page 28 note 9 See notes 1 and 2 in this chapter.

page 28 note 10 If each of the 400 feet per 100 lines were spondees, there would be 800 syllables. Since Ovid has 54.4% of dactyls and Vergil has 43.9%, Ovid increases the 800 syllables by 218 additional syllables (.544 × 400) and Vergil increases the 800 by 176 (.439 × 400).

page 29 note 11 Tristia 4.10.25-26.

page 29 note 12 Line 128.