V. EARLIER BEHAVIOUR OF THE LATIN ACCENT
§ 86. We have now seen something of the nature of the Accent in the Indo-European language just before the Italic branch separated from the others; and also in the Latin of Cicero’s time. The course of its development in between these two epochs has been cleared up by recent study; and as the facts throw great light on the derivation of a great many Latin words it will be well to state them briefly here.
§ 87. In pro-ethnic Italic, that is before Latin and other dialects (§ 9) had become separate, the chief Accent of every word was shifted to the first syllable, no matter what its place had been in Indo-European.
To this was due the degradation of the vowels (§ 120) in such forms as acceptus, from *ád-captos, contingo from *cón-tango.
Accent in Plautine Latin
§ 88. By the 3rd Century (300-200) B.C., this system had given way to one which limited the place of the word-accent to one of the last four syllables of
