ACCENT. - Etymologically, a. derives from «ad cantus», as something pertaining to music. In fact, to accent a word tonically is equivalent to giving it a certain melody that progresses from the beginning to the syllable called tonic. Isolated monosyllables, therefore, do not properly have a. The history of Latin a. must be considered in three stages: in the pagan or classical period, in the Christian period, and also in the transition from one to the other. The period most relevant to liturgical Latin is the third, namely the fourth century; then a., while retaining its melodic character, although a certain initial force in the first syllable had not altogether disappeared, and eliminating what was conventional in taking account of the prosodic weight of syllables, became slightly intensive; fully consonant with its classical melodic character, it rises with agility, giving life and melody to the entire word. Thus, one may say, liturgical melody was created. The tonic a. influences verbal melody, and this, adapted to melodic development with a measured gradation, forms the clauses, the members of sentences, and the entire sentence, to which it lends the graceful, solemn, and utterly Roman “arch-shaped” design. It is especially in tonic cadences that a. makes its influence felt. There are simple tonic cadences, in which it brings out the final or the last two a. of the text; or cursive tonic cadences, when it arranges the final rhythm of the clause by imitating the oratorical «cursus», but replacing numerical quantity with its tonicity.
Gregorio M. Suñol