SFL Lesson 25 Quiz & a question of macrons

[Jon Christianson]

I'm back! I was sick for a while.

Anyway, your question. First, a disclaimer: accents and macrons are not an authentic part of Latin orthography. We merely include them to assist students in pronunciation and emphasis. Your student is not writing poorly if he or she leaves them out entirely; I personally never insist on it in my classroom.

However, to explain the seeming conundrum, as a rule the Forms use accents instead of macrons to indicate emphasis. We generally only include macrons when doing so is instructive or necessary. Thus, the macron is not included in all the places you mention except two:

ST/TM p. 75, third diamond: macron IS included because it's demonstrating the pronunciation difference between the two forms for the first time
ST/TM p. 75, Oral Drill #7: macron IS NOT included, because it's testing students' ability to identify the difference based on the accent alone
WB/TK p. 189, III, endings: macron IS included, because the ending is not connected to a stem and accent is impossible to determine otherwise
WB/TK p. 191, Drill C, Forum and 4; Drill D, #1: macron IS NOT included, because it's testing students' ability to identify and parse a future passive verb
WB/TK p. 192, Drill E, #3: macron IS NOT included, because it's testing students' ability to identify and parse a future passive verb

The only macron that seems aberrant by our standards is the one in the conjugation of duco on page 189. Since the emphasis should be evident from the absence of an accent, the macron does not need to be included here. I'll flip through the edition notes and see if there's some extra reason for keeping it, but otherwise I'll mark this for correction. Otherwise, however, there are no mistaken macrons. For your and tyour students' purposes, simply exclude them if they are troubling.

- Jon

[enbateau]

Thank you! I trust they must be mistakes, and I'll tell the kids.

[Bonnie]

Yes, that secret coding was funny. As soon as I finished typing, I realized that you knew the rules and that was why you raised those good questions. Incidentally, although it's not useful information now, you will have macrons all throughout Henle II.

Bonnie

[enbateau]

I seem to have invoked coding language. The red "Visitor Message" should read number 7, while the red "forum" should be number 2 (I think).

Yep, I get the rule, but that macron is missing in a lot of places.

[Bonnie]

For the second person singular passive of 3rd conjugation verbs:
There is no macron in the present passive, so it is VIN ce ris, DU ce ris, FI ge ris, JUN ge ris, DI ce ris, etc.
There is a macron over the e in the future passive, so it is vin CE ris, du CE ris, fi GE ris, jun GE ris, di CER is.

Sorry, after I typed the above, I realize that you understand this and are asking for clarification on the specific examples you cite -- and that this does not really answer your question. I'll leave it, as it might help others who want to see the simple rules that underlie your question.

Bonnie

[enbateau]

On p. 2/2 of the SFL Lesson 25 Quiz in the Bonus translation, under the preposition "against," the Teacher Key lists that "contra" is governed by the ablative. It should say accusative.

Macron Question:

On p. 75 of the SFL TM, a box further explains the way the SFL text helps distinguish the present passive of the 2nd P. sing. from the future passive of the 2nd P. sing. in the 3rd conjugation. It piggybacks on the 4th bullet in the student text about an accent mark being over the vowel in the verb stem of the 2nd P. sing. However, I'm not sure how hard and fast this rule is as it doesn't always seem to get universally applied. For instance, in the Oral Drill on the same page of the Student Text and SFL TM, #'s 6 and 7 on the left-hand side are vínceris and vinceris. Shouldn't Visitor Messages have a macron over the e (vincēris)? In the Student Workbook, on p. 189, Section III: Conjugations, for duco, the present passive has the accent over the vowel in the stem and the future passive has the macron over ducēris. Yet, two pages later on p. 191 under Drill C (Future Passive, 3rd Conjugation), #1: figeris has no macron, yet it is translated you will be fixed, and neither does #4, strueris. The same is true with Drill D, #1: jungeris has no macron over the e and is future passive. For Drill E on p. 192, #3: "you will be told" is listed as diceris, no macron over the e, while Forum has the accent over "dúceris" to distinguish it as 2nd P. sing present.
Tell me one way or the other and I will adapt, but the inconsistency is hard for my students. I told them for the purposes of my class to keep using the acute accent and macron to distinguish between the present and future passive, but to expect to see it without them and to use context clues if the accents/macrons aren't present in other writings.