In
linguistics
Linguistics is the scientific study of language. The areas of linguistic analysis are syntax (rules governing the structure of sentences), semantics (meaning), Morphology (linguistics), morphology (structure of words), phonetics (speech sounds ...
, the ultima is the last
syllable of a word, the
penult is the next-to-last syllable, and the antepenult is third-from-last syllable. In a word of three syllables, the names of the syllables are antepenult-penult-ultima.
Etymology
Ultima comes from Latin ''ultima (syllaba)'' "last (syllable)". Penult and antepenult are abbreviations for ''paenultima'' and ''antepaenultima''. Penult has the prefix ''paene'' "almost", and antepenult has the prefix ''ante'' "before".
Classical languages
In
Latin
Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...
and
Ancient Greek
Ancient Greek (, ; ) includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the classical antiquity, ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Greek ...
, only the three last syllables can be accented. In Latin, a word's
stress is dependent on the
weight or length of the penultimate syllable. In Ancient Greek, the place and the type of accent are dependent on the length of the vowel in the ultima.
See also
*
Pitch accent
**
Acute accent
***
Oxytone,
paroxytone,
proparoxytone
**
Circumflex
***
Perispomenon, properispomenon
**
Grave accent
***
Barytone
*
Rhyme
*
Stress (linguistics)
*
Syllable
References
*
Herbert Weir Smyth. ''Greek Grammar''
par. 166, 167
Phonology
Greek grammar
Ancient Greek
{{Latin-stub