Abstract
Prosody refers to the oral realization of a word that is both conventionally appropriate and apt for expression of a particular speaker meaning. Traditional grammarians, who did not have modern technical tools for the study of prosodic phenomena yet, could only use their proprioception and rely on comparison with other phenomena already studied. In their effort to describe the phenomena they considered important, French grammarians thus looked for inspiration in other fields: poetry, rhetoric and music. This article addresses the description of prosody in the grammars of the 16th and early 17th centuries, and in particular the contributions and influences of theories and models from other fields.