40. (1) The fate of an unaccented vowel depended largely upon the
syllable in which it stood: in general, unstressed vowels in the
initial syllable remained intact, while all vowels, except a, fell (at
different dates) in the other syllables. The fall of unaccented vowels
resulted in many new consonant groups: _collocáre_ ＞ colcár, _hóminem_
＞ ómne, _sábbatum_ ＞ sápte.
(2) The vowels e̯ and i̯, instead of falling or remaining unchanged,
became y in Vulgar Latin, early in our era: _alea_ ＞ alya, _diŭrnus_ ＞
dyųrnus, _mĕdium_ ＞ mędyu. Similarly u̯ became w: _placui_ ＞ placwi,
_tĕnuis_ ＞ tęnwis.
1. Apparently, however, e̯é, i̯é ＞ e; o̯ó, u̯ó ＞ o:
_prĕhĕndĕre_ ＞ _prĕndĕre_; _abĭĕtem_ ＞ ✱_abētem_, _facĭēbat_
＞ ✱_facēbat_, _parĭĕtem_ ＞ _parētem_, _quĭētus_ ＞ _quētus_;
_cŏhŏrtem_ ＞ _cōrtem_, _cŏŏpĕrit_ ＞ _cōpĕrit_ ✱_cŏpĕrit_;
_dŭŏdĕcim_ ＞ ✱_dōdĕcim_. The short e and o in _prĕndĕre_ and
✱_cŏpĕrit_ are not accounted for. In _mulĭĕrem_[25] ＞ Pr.
molhęr the i̯ remained long enough (perhaps under the influence
of the nominative _mŭlier_) to palatalize the l.