89. In the preliterary period of the Latin language, the accent tended
to go as far from the end of the word as possible (_recessive accent_).
Thus, while the classical accentuation is #inimī́cus#, the older period
accented #ínimīcus#. In literary Latin this early recessive accent has
survived, only in Plautus’s accentuation of words of the form ⏑ ⏑ ⏑ ⏓
(proceleusmatic or fourth paeon, see 2521), in which he stresses the
first syllable: as, #fácilius# (classical #facílius#); #vóluerat#
(classical #volúerat#). But in many instances the early recessive accent
may be traced in literary Latin by the phonetic changes which it
produced (102 ff.).
90. MUSICAL ELEMENT. The native Latin grammarians slight the stress
accentuation and pay much attention instead to the variations in pitch.
But they are so greatly dependent on their Greek models that they are
unsafe guides in this matter. It is, however, probable that a stressed
vowel was uttered on a higher key (acute) than an unstressed vowel
(grave), and that in certain syllables the long, accented vowel showed a
rise and fall (circumflex): as, #illîc# (88).
91. The force of the Latin stress accent must have varied at different
periods and in different localities, as it now varies in the Romance
countries. The early recessive accent seems to have been fairly
emphatic; but the stress in classical Latin was probably weak and the
difference between accented and unaccented syllables was much less
marked than it is in English.