Changes of the diphthongs independent of accent.
(vii.) _eu_ became _ou_ in pro-ethnic Italic, Lat. _novus_: Gr.
[Greek: neos], Lat. _novem_, Umb. _nuviper_ (i.e. _noviper_), "usque
ad noviens": Gr. [Greek: (en-)nea]; in unaccented syllables this
-_ov_- sank to -_u(v)_- as in _denuo_ from _de novo_, _suus_ (which is
rarely anything but an enclitic word), Old Lat. _sovos_: Gr. [Greek:
he(w)os].
(viii.) _ou_, whether original or from _eu_, when in one syllable
became -_u_-, probably about 200 B.C., as in _duco_, Old Lat. _douco_,
Goth, _tiuhan_, Eng. _tow_, Ind.-Eur. *_de^uco_.
(ix.) _ei_ became _i_ (as in _dico_, Old Lat. _deico_: Gr. [Greek:
deik-nymi], _fido_: Gr. [Greek: peithomai], Ind.-Eur. *_bheidho_) just
before the time of Lucilius, who prescribes the spellings _puerei_
(nom. plur.) but _pueri_ (gen. sing.), which indicates that the two
forms were pronounced alike in his time, but that the traditional
distinction in spelling had been more or less preserved. But after his
time, since the sound of _ei_ was merely that of _i_, _ei_ is
continually used merely to denote a long _i_, even where, as in
_faxeis_ for faxis, there never had been any diphthongal sound at all.
(x.) In rustic Latin (Volscian and Sabine) _au_ became _o_ as in the
vulgar terms _explodere_, _plostrum_. Hence arose interesting doublets
of meaning;--_lautus_ (the Roman form), "elegant," but _lotus_,
"washed"; _haustus_, "draught," but _hostus_ (Cato), "the season's
yield of fruit."
(xi.) _oi_ became _oe_ and thence _u_ some time after Plautus, as in
_unus_, Old Lat. _oenus_: Gr. [Greek: oinê] "ace." In Plautus the
forms have nearly all been modernized, save in special cases, e.g. in
_Trin._ i. 1, 2, _immoene facinus_, "a thankless task," has not been
changed to _immune_ because that meaning had died out of the adjective
so that _immune facinus_ would have made nonsense; but at the end of
the same line _utile_ has replaced _oetile_. Similarly in a small
group of words the old form was preserved through their frequent use
in legal or religious documents where tradition was strictly
preserved--_poena_, _foedus_ (neut.), _foedus_ (adj.), "ill-omened."
So the archaic and poetical _moenia_, "ramparts," beside the true
classical form _munia_, "duties"; the historic _Poeni_ beside the
living and frequently used _Punicum_ (_bellum_)--an example which
demonstrates conclusively (_pace_ Sommer) that the variation between
_u_ and _oe_ is not due to any difference in the surrounding sounds.
(xii.) _ai_ became _ae_ and this in rustic and later Latin (2nd or 3rd
century A.D.) simple _e_, though of an open quality--Gr. [Greek:
aithos, aithô], Lat. _aedes_ (originally "the place for the fire");
the country forms of _haedus_, _praetor_ were _edus_, _pretor_ (Varro,
_Ling. Lat._ v. 97, Lindsay, _Lat. Lang._ p. 44).
19. _Vowels and Diphthongs in unaccented Syllables._--The changes of
the short vowels and of the diphthongs in unaccented syllables are too
numerous and complex to be set forth here. Some took place under the
first-syllable system of accent, some later (§§ 9, 10). Typical
examples are _pep_E_rci_ from *_péparcai_ and _ónustus_ from
*_ónostos_ (before two consonants); _concIno_ from *_cóncano_ and
_hosp_I_t_I_s_ from *_hóstipotes_, _legImus_ beside Gr. [Greek:
legomen] (before one consonant); _Sic_U_li_ from *_Siceloi_ (before a
thick _l_, see § 17, 3); _dil_I_g_I_t_ from *_dísleget_ (contrast,
however, the preservation of the second _e_ in _negl_E_g_I_t_);
_occ_U_pat_ from *_opcapat_ (contrast _accipit_ with _i_ in the
following syllable); the varying spelling in _monumentum_ and
_monimentum_, _maxumus_ and _maximus_, points to an intermediate sound
(_ü_) between _u_ and _i_ (cf. Quint. i. 4. 8, reading _optumum_ and
_optimum_ [not _opimum_] with W. M. Lindsay, _Latin Language_ §§ 14,
16, seq.), which could not be correctly represented in spelling; this
difference may, however, be due merely to the effect of differences in
the neighbouring sounds, an effect greatly obscured by analogical
influences.
Inscriptions of the 4th or 3rd century, B.C. which show original -_es_
and -_os_ in final syllables (e.g. _Veneres_, gen. sing., _navebos_
abl. pl.) compared with the usual forms in -_is_, -_us_ a century
later, give us roughly the date of these changes. But final -_os_,
-_om_, remained after -_u_- (and _v_) down to 50 B.C. as in _servos_.
20. Special mention should be made of the change of -_ri_- and -_ro_-
to -_er_- (_incertus_ from *_encritos_; _ager_, _acer_ from *_agros_,
*_acris_; the feminine _acris_ was restored in Latin (though not in
North Oscan) by the analogy of other adjectives, like _tristis_, while
the masculine _acer_ was protected by the parallel masculine forms of
the -_o_- declension, like _tener_, _niger_ [from *_teneros_,
*_nigros_]).
21. Long vowels generally remained unchanged, as in _compago_,
_condono_.
22. Of the diphthongs, _ai_ and _oi_ both sank to _ei_, and with
original _ei_ further to _i_, in unaccented syllables, as in _Achivi_
from Gr. [Greek: Achaiwoi], _oliivom_, earlier *_oleivom_ (borrowed
into Gothic and there becoming _alev_) from Gr. [Greek: elaiwon]. This
gives us interesting chronological data, since the _el_- must have
changed to _ol_- (§ 16. 3) before the change of -_ai_- to -_ei_-, and
that before the change of the accent from the first syllable to the
penultimate (§ 9); and the borrowing took place after -_ai_- had
become -_ei_-, but before -_eivom_ had become -_eum_, as it regularly
did before the time of Plautus.
But cases of _ai_, _ae_, which arose later than the change to _ei_,
_i_, were unaffected by it; thus the nom. plur. of the first
declension originally ended in -_as_ (as in Oscan), but was changed at
some period before Plautus to -_ae_ by the influence of the pronominal
nom. plur. ending -_ae_ in _quae?_ _hae_, &c., which was accented in
these monosyllables and had therefore been preserved. The history of
the -_ae_ of the dative, genitive and locative is hardly yet clear
(see Exon, _Hermathena_ (1905), xiii. 555; K. Brugmann, _Grundriss_,
1st ed. ii. 571, 601).
The diphthongs _au_, _ou_ in unaccented syllables sank to -_u_-, as in
_includo_ beside _claudo_; the form _cludo_, taken from the compounds,
superseded _claudo_ altogether after Cicero's time. So _cudo_, taken
from _incudo_, _excudo_, banished the older *_caudo_, "I cut, strike,"
with which is probably connected _cauda_, "the striking member, tail,"
and from which comes _caussa_, "a cutting, decision, legal case,"
whose -_ss_- shows that it is derived from a root ending in a dental
(see §25 (b) below and Conway, _Verner's Law in Italy_, p. 72).
_Consonants._--Passing now to the chief changes of the consonants we
may notice the following points:--
23. Consonant _i_ (wrongly written _j_; there is no _g_-sound in the
letter), conveniently written _^i_ by phoneticians,
(i.) was lost between vowels, as in _tres_ for *_tre^ies_, &c. (§ 17.
6);
(ii.) in combination: -_m^i_- became -_ni_-, as in _veniö_, from
Ind.-Eur. *[g]^u _m^io_, "I come," Sans. _gam_-, Eng. _come_; -_n^i_-
probably (under certain conditions at least) became -_nd_-, as in
_tendo_ beside Gr. [Greek: teinô], _fendo_ = Gr. [Greek: theinô], and
in the gerundive stem -_endus_, -_undus_, probably for -_en^ios_,
-_on^ios_; cf. the Sanskrit gerundive in -_an-iya-s_; -_g^i_-, -_d^i_-
became -_^i_- as in _maior_ from *_mag-ior_, _peior_ from *_ped-ior_;
(iii.) otherwise -_^i_- after a consonant became generally syllabic
(-_i^i_-), as in _capio_ (trisyllabic) beside Goth. _hafya_.
24. Consonant _u_ (formerly represented by English _v_), conveniently
written _^u_,
(i.) was lost between similar vowels when the first was accented, as
in _audiui_, which became _audii_ (§ 17 [6]), but not in _amaui_, nor
in _avarus_.
(ii.) in combination: _d^u_ became _b_, as in _bonus_, _bellum_, O.
Lat. _d^uonus_, *_d^uellum_ (though the poets finding this written
form in old literary sources treated it as trisyllabic); _p^u_-,
_f^u_-, _b^u_-, lost the _^u_, as in _ap-erio_, _op-erio_ beside Lith.
-_veriu_, "I open," Osc. _veru_, "gate," and in the verbal endings
-_bam_, -_bo_, from -_bh^u-am_, -_bh^uo_ (with the root of Lat.
_fui_), and _fio_, _du-bius_, _super-bus_, _vasta-bundus_, &c., from
the same; -_s^u_- between vowels (at least when the second was
accented) disappeared (see below § 25 (a), iv.), as in _pruina_ for
_prusuina_, cf. Eng. _fros-t_, Sans, _prusva_, "hoar-frost." Contrast
_Minérva_ from an earlier *_menes-^ua_, _s^ue_-, _s^uo_-, both became
so-, as in _soroor_(_em_) beside Sans. _svasar-am_, Ger.
_schwes-t-er_, Eng. _sister_, _sordes_, beside O. Ger. _swart-s_, mod.
_schwarz_. -_^uo_- in final syllables became -_u_-, as in _cum_ from
_quom_, _parum_ from _par^uom_; but in the declensional forms -_^uu_-
was commonly restored by the analogy of the other cases, thus (a)
_ser^uos_, _ser^uom_, _ser^ui_ became (b) *_serus_, *_serum_,
*_ser^ui_, but finally (c) _ser^uus_, _ser^uum_, _ser^ui_.
(iii.) In the 2nd century A.D., Lat. _v_ (i.e. _^u_) had become a
voiced labio-dental fricative, like Eng. _v_; and the voiced labial
plosive _b_ had broken down (at least in certain positions) into the
same sound; hence they are frequently confused as in spellings like
_vene_ for _bene_, _Bictorinus_ for _Victorinus_.