In English the term accent commonly denotes superior stress or force of voice upon certain syllables of words, which distinguishes them from the other syllables. Many English words, as aspiration have two accents, a secondary and primary, the latter being the fuller or stronger. Some words, as incomprehensibility/, have two secondary or subordinate accents. When the full accent falls on a vowel, that vowel has its long sound, as in vocal; but when it falls on a consonant, the preceding vowel is short, as in habit. This kind of accent alone regulates English verse as contrasted with Latin or Greek verse, in which the metre depended on quantity or length of syllables. In books on elocution three marks or accents are generally made use of, the first or acute ( / ) showing when the voice is to be raised, the second or grave ('), when it is to be depressed, and the third or circumflex (^) when the vowel is to be uttered with an undulating sound. In some languages there is no such distinct accent as in English (or German), and this seems to be now the case with French. Research Accent
In rhetoric, emphasis is a special stress or force given to some syllable, word, or words in speaking, in order to impress the hearers in some desired manner, thus differing from accent, the position of which is fixed. Research Emphasis
A hexameter is a verse of six feet, the heroic or epic measure of the Greeks and Romans. The sixth foot is always a spondee (two long syllables) or a trochee (a long and a short). The five first may be all dactyls (two short syllables and one long), or all spondees, or a mixture of both. The scheme of this verse then is with all the varieties which the mingling of the two kinds of feet affords. In modern poetry the hexameter has been frequently used.
In English hexameters accent is almost entirely substituted for length, and trochees generally take the place of spondees. Longfellow in his Evangeline, Kingsley in his Andromeda, and Clough in his Bothie adopted this form of verse. The following lines are specimens of dough's English hexameters: 0 let us
try, he
answered, the waters them
selves will sup
port us,
Yea very
ripples and
waves will
form to a
boat under neath us. Research Hexameter
Prosody is that part of grammar which treats of the quantity of syllables, of accent, and of the laws of versification. Though chiefly restricted to versification, it may also be extended to prose composition. In the Greek and Latin languages every syllable had its determinate length or quantity, and verses were constructed by systems of recurring feet, each foot containing a definite number of syllables, possessing a certain quantity and arrangement. Research Prosody
In philology, the term sonant denotes the sound which carries the syllabic accent, as 'a' in 'apt'. A sonant, therefore is regarded as the opposite of a consonant, and sonants are vowels, liquids and nasals. There can only be one sonant in a syllable. Research Sonant
Verse is the principal unit by which metrical compositions are measured. generally speaking, it is equivalent to what we term commonly the line. The elementary unit of metrical compositions is the 'foot' - i.e. a little group of one or more syllables measured either by accent or by quantity. The verse in turn consists of a certain number of these feet grouped in definite order, on the conclusion of which the writer turns back and repeats the same or a closely related group. As the following verse or verses may vary slightly from the original pattern, so as to form what is strictly termed a stanza, the word verse is sometimes stretched to cover this more elaborate grouping, which is then taken as the principal metrical unit. Research Verse
Brian Glover was an English actor, wrestler and writer. He was born in 1934 at Sheffield, Yorkshire and died in 1997 of a brain tumour. Originally a school teacher, he left teaching to become an actor, often playing simple characters, chatacterised by his thick Yorkshireaccent and slow speech. Research Brian Glover
Abbreviations
Research Accent
