Page:The Making of Latin.djvu/60

46 so *supo-téndo became sub-tendo, *āridḗre, *avidḗre (from āridus, avidus) became ārdḗre, audére. In phrases also similar changes arose; probably válidē mágnus became váldē-ma̋gnus, extera viam became extrā́ viam, aqua calida became aqua-cálda.

§ But the influence of cognate forms often interfered; posterī́diē became postrī́diē; but in posterṓrum, posterarum the short syllable was restored by the influence of the trisyllabic cases like pósterā to which the law did not apply. Conversely the Nom. *āridor, which, as it had only three syllables, would not have been contracted, followed the form of ārdṓrem (from *āridṓrem), ārdḗre, and the like, which to start with had four.

§ The same change produced the monosyllabic forms nec, ac, neu, seu, from neque, etc., before consonants, since they had often no strong accent of their own, but were commonly pronounced in one breath with the following word, neque tantum becoming nec tantum and the like. So in Plautus (and probably always in spoken Latin) the words nemp(e), ind(e), ill(e) were regularly pronounced as monosyllables.

§ It is possible that the frequent (but far from universal) syncope of final short syllables in Latin (especially before -s, as in méns which may stand for both *menos and *mentis and represent both Greek ‘spirit, force’ and Sanskrit matís, I.Eu. *mn̥tís, Eng.