Faustulus, who found the twin infants, Romulus and Remus, and carried them to her to be nursed and brought up. But this is a later legend. The name Acca Larentia seems to have meant "Mother of the Lares;" and in the primitive Latin mythology she was the cultus-heroine of the festival Larentalia, held in honor of the spirits of the dead on December 23. She was perhaps identical with Dea Dia, to whose worship the Fratres Arvales were dedicated. See Arval Brothers.
ACCAULT, a'ko', Michel. A French explorer. He was a lieutenant of La Salle, at whose request he accompanied Louis Hennepin in the exploration of the upper part of the Mississippi in 1679. See Hennepin.
AC'CELERANDO, Ital. pron. a'cha-la-
ran'du. In music, with gradually increasing
velocity of movement.
ACCEL'ERATION (from Lat. ad, to + celerare, to hasten). In theoretical mechanics, a
term which denotes the rate of change of velocity
at any instant with respect to the time, that is,
the change of velocity in the next second of time
if the rate of change is uniform; in other words,
the change which would take place in the velocity
in the next second if, during that time, the
change were to continue at the same rate as at
the instant considered. An example of accelera-
tion is furnished by a body falling freely toward
the earth. Its numerical value is about 981 centi-
meters, or 32.2 feet, per second. Hence a body
freely falling from a position of rest, or with
velocity equal to zero, at the end of the first
second would be moving with a velocity of 32
feet per second, at the end of the second second
with a velocity of 64, at the end of the third
second with a velocity of 00, and so on. In math-
ematical language, the acceleration is the lim-
iting value of the ratio Av/_At, where At- is
the "actual change in the velocity in the interval
of time At seconds, as this interval is taken
shorter and shorter. There are two kinds of
acceleration, linear and angular, corresponding
to the two kinds of motion, translation and rota-
tion, and there are two types of each of these.
See Mechanics.
ACCENT (Lat. accentus, from ad, to + cantus, singing, chant). A special stress laid upon one syllable of a word, by which it is made more prominent than the rest. In the Indo-European languages two kinds of accent are found, varying in quality — the musical and the expiratory. The first is found in Sanskrit and Greek, the second in Latin and Teutonic. The accent may also be distinguished by its position, as free, in Greek and primitive Teutonic, and fixed, in later Teutonic. In English the general tendency is to throw the accent back. In compound words the accent is usually on the first part, as in courtyard, highway. When the first part is a prefix it receives the accent if the word be a noun or adjective; the root is accented if the word be a verb. This rule applies also to some other words, as pres'ent and present'. Borrowed words usually adopt the English accent, as orator, presence; but some recently borrowed French words retain the original accentuation, as parole, caprice. The absence of stress on final inflectional syllables has played an important part in the leveling of inflections. (See English Language.) Besides word-accents, there is a sentence-accent, by which some word in the sentence is given greater stress than the others. This is always a free accent, the position of the accent depending upon the meaning. In the sentence, "Where is he?" three different meanings can be given by shifting the position of the accent. The effect of sentence accent is often seen in the development of doublets, or words with a common origin, but a different form and meaning, as to—too, of—off. ( See Phonetic Laws.) Accent is also the essential principle of modern verse. (See Versification.) For the primitive Indo-European accent and its effect in connection with conjugation, see Philology.
In Music, the term is analogous to accent in language, the stress or emphasis given to certain notes or parts of bars in a composition. It may be of three kinds: grammatical, rhythmical, and rhetorical or æsthetic. The first always falls on the first part of a bar, long or compound measures of time usually having additional or subordinate accents — only slightly marked. The rhythmical accent is applied to the larger component parts of a composition, such as phrases, themes, motives, etc., and marks their entrance, climax, end. The rhetorical accent is irregular, and depends on taste and feeling, exactly as do the accent and emphasis used in oratory. In vocal music well adapted to words, the words serve as a guide to the right use of the rhetorical accent. See Syncopation; Ragtime.
ACCEN'TOR (Lat., one who sings with an-
other, from ad, to + cantor, singer). A book
name for a group of European warblers, of
which the misnamed British hedge-sparrow (Ac-
centor modiilaris) is a type: and also for the
American water-thi ashes, wood-warblers of the
genus Seiurus.
ACCEPT'ANCE, In law, the signification by the drawee of his assent to the order of the drawer of a bill of exchange (q.v.). The term is also employed to describe the bill after such acceptance.
ACCEPT'ANTS, APPEL'LANTS, The
names given, respectively, to those among the
French clergy who accepted the bull Uniyenitus
condemning Jansenism (1713), and to those who
did not, but appealed to a general council to
settle the controversy.
ACCESS, Right of. A legal incident of the
ownership of property abutting on the sea or other navigable waters or on a highway or other public lands. In addition to the general right to the use of such waters and lands, which he shares with the public at large, the adjacent owner has a right of free access which is considered a special property right, and of which, in this country, he cannot be deprived, even by the State, without due process of law and compensation. The existence of such a right as against he State was long disputed, but is now, as the result of recent decisions, firmly established. Peculiar applications of this right are to be found in the common-law rights of mooring vessels and of wharfing out in navigable waters. Its infringement has usually taken the form of a grant of the shore or of land under water for railroad or wharfing purposes, whereby the access of the riparian owner was cut off. The right is not to be confused with that of the abutting owner in a highway or private stream subject to a public use where the fee of the high-
