Zur Problematik der Akzentqualität im klassischen Latein

From among the earlier alternative, opposing views on the quality, i.e. the phonetic background of the Latin word accent, only the theory of the so-called German school ("deutsche Schule und Theorie") is widespread in our days. According to this theory, a vigorous stress accent prevailed in the classical period, as well as in the preceding and in the subsequent periods of the history of the Latin language. A reconsideration of the (linguistic, metalinguistic, metrical and typological) arguments for a vigorous stress accent assumed for the classical period however suggests that the classical Latin word accent has to be identified rather as a type of weak stress accent or pitch accent.