Book 13
26
THESE are the words of Publius Nigidius, a man pre-eminent for his knowledge of all the sciences, from the twenty-fourth book of his Grammatical Notes: Fr. 35, Swoboda. How then can the accent be correctly used, if in names like Valeri we do not know whether they are genitive On casus interrogandi for the genitive see Fay, A.J.P. xxxvi (1916), p. 78. or vocative? For the second syllable of the genitive has a higher pitch than the first, and on the last syllable the pitch falls again; but in the vocative case the first syllable has the highest pitch, and then there is a gradual descent. See note 2, p. 426. Many believe this to be true also of the Latin sermo urbanus; see Class. Phil. ii. 444 ff. Thus indeed Nigidius bids us speak. But if anyone nowadays, calling to a Valerius, accents the first syllable of the vocative according to the direction of Nigidius, he will not escape being laughed at. Furthermore, Nigidius calls the acute accent the highest pitch, and what we call accentus, or accent, he calls voculatio, or tone, and the case which we now call genetivus, or genitive, he calls casus interrogandi, the case of asking.
