§610. Substitution

In many cases measures of the same time may be substituted for each other, a long syllable taking the place of two short ones, or two short syllables the place of a long one.

In the former case the measure is said to be contracted; in the latter, to be resolved:—

a. A Spondee (¯ ¯) may take the place of a Dactyl (¯ ˘ ˘) or an Anapæst (˘ ˘ ¯); and a Tribrach (˘ ˘ ˘) may take the place of a Trochee (¯ ˘) or an Iambus (˘ ¯). The optional substitution of one long syllable for two short ones is represented by the sign ˘˘.

b. When a long syllable having the Ictus (§ 611. a) is resolved, the ictus properly belongs to both the resulting short syllables; but for convenience the mark of accent is placed on the first:—

J. H. Allen and J. B. Greenough, New Latin Grammar (Boston: Ginn, 1903). Text provided under a CC BY-SA license by Perseus Digital Library, http://www.perseus.tufts.edu, with funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities.