Talk:accentus

Tea room discussion

Note: the below discussion was moved from the Wiktionary:Tea room.

Nbarth and I have found two different, but not necessarily incompatible, etymologies for this Latin word. L&S identify the word as coming from the verb (deprecated template usage) accino, apparently as a participle. Etymology on-line suggests that the word originated as a calque from Ancient Greek. While it is possible that both etymologies are correct in some way, neither source makes any mention of the ideas in the other. Anyone have additional information that will help sort this etymology out? --EncycloPetey 00:43, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

See User talk:Nbarth#accentus for the discussion we've had between us. --EncycloPetey 00:44, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

BTW, the link to the claimed calque in question is:

• Online Etymology Dictionary: accent

“from L. accentus "song added to speech," from ad- "to" + cantus "a singing," pp. of canere "to sing". Loan-translation of Gk. prosoidia, from pros- "to" + oide "song,"”

Also found in:

• The concise Oxford dictionary of current English.--8th ed.

“L accentus (as AC-, cantus song) repr. Gk prosoidia (PROSODY)”

Nbarth (email) (talk) 00:54, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

Accinō strikes me as being an unlikely source. I once wrote a paper on canō; I'll try to dig it up and see if my instructor made any pertinent comments. I can also take a look at TLL next time I visit the library. My Italian etymology source suggests canō as the root of accento. Medellia 16:52, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

Is this word only used in Classical Latin in commentaries? If it is really only used by the "language professionals" of the time, it seems all the more likely that it be a calque. DCDuring TALK 19:35, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

No, its use is not thus restricted either in time or in scope, and it has additional meanings beyond the grammatical/linguistic sense. --EncycloPetey 20:29, 25 July 2008 (UTC)