How can one predict the length of theme vowels in verbs?

1. What is the length of the vowels?
2. What is the importance of vowel length?
3. What does it mean when vowel length is contrastive?
4. What is the long vowel rule in Latin?

What is the length of the vowels?

Vowel length and related features

This gives four distinctive lengths and five physical lengths: short and long stressed vowels, short and long unstressed vowels, and a half-long vowel, which is a short vowel found in a syllable immediately preceded by a stressed short vowel, e.g. i-so.

What is the importance of vowel length?

One such feature is vowel length (or quantity). This distinguishes long vowels (both long monophthongs and diphthongs) from short vowels, and is important in global terms, since 'vowel quantity is reasonably stable across varieties of English' (JENKINS 2000:144).

What does it mean when vowel length is contrastive?

Vowel length contrasts refer to the phonological oppositions between long and short vowels, which can signal different word meanings (Odden, 2011).

What is the long vowel rule in Latin?

Long and short for Latin vowels simply means the length of time that the vowel is held for. A long Latin vowel is indicated by a macron, which is a line over the vowel, as in these: ā, ē, ī, ō, ū, ȳ. Some books (and Vicipaedia) use an accent mark, as in á, é, í, ó, ú, ý.