The historical transition from alliterative accentual verse to quantitative meter in early continental epics was dictated by what structural difference between languages?

Correct answer: Germanic languages relied on stress patterns; Greek and Latin on vowel duration

Classical epics (Greek and Latin) use quantitative meter, which measures the structural length or duration of vowels (long and short syllables) to build a rhythmic grid like dactylic hexameter. Early Germanic traditions (like Old English and Old Norse) lacked this vowel-length system. Instead, they built their epics around accentual-alliterative verse, which relied on counting heavy word stresses and matching initial consonant sounds across a central line break.