[1lawlady]

I heard it too today, Stanne. I thought he was having some light hearted fun and showed a great deal of affection for Freepers. I’m one for archaic pronunciations, so why should I care how he pronounces concomiTANTly?

[lentulusgracchus]

I’m one for archaic pronunciations, so why should I care how he pronounces concomiTANTly?

Because it's incorrect. Check dictionary.com, there is no pronunciation shown there other than that with the accent on the second syllable.

In Late Latin and Vulgar Latin before that, the language began to take on a singsongy, syncopated accent similar to the accentuation of later Latin (non-Greekified) poetry, as in

JUliANus PERforAtur
A quoDAM qui SUSciTAtur
A beAta VIRgine.
-- Stella Maris, 13th century

So in a word of many syllables like "concomitant", the old adjective would have been "conCOMiTANte .... (equite, peditatu, whatever)", the COM being a secondary accent that grew up in response to this felt need of Late and Medieval Latinity, to make every other syllable a secondary stress.

In Classical Latin, there'd have been no secondary stress, and the word would have been pronounced "concomiTANte ...."

In English, the secondary stress is now the primary (only), the Latin endings having fallen away. Therefore the pronunciation ends up being "conCOMitant".

Help any?

</Net Nanny>