[24]
This, however, occurs far more frequently in Greek words such as Atrei, which in our
young days was pronounced by the most learned of
our elders with an acute accent on the first syllable,
necessitating a grave accent on the second; the
same remark applies to Nerei and Terei. Such has
been the tradition as regards accents.1
[p. 91]
1 The Roman accent was a stress, while the Greek was a pitch accent, though by the Christian era tending to change into stress. Roman grammarians borrow the Greek terminology and speak of accents in terms of pitch. The explanation of this is probably that the Roman stress accent was accompanied by an elevation of the pitch. Here the acute accent certainly implies stress; the grave implies a drop in pitch and the absence of stress. The circumflex means that the voice rises slightly and then falls slightly, but implies stress. See Lindsay, Latin Language, pp. 148–153.
Quintilian. With an English Translation. Harold Edgeworth Butler. Cambridge. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1920.
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