Page:The Making of Latin.djvu/63

Rh was due to the influence of common forms like ĕă bŏnă, mălă, which had come under the Law because they were disyllables with their first syllable short.

§ These processes had far-reaching effects on Latin Inflexion. The chief of these was the establishment of the type of Conjugation known as the capio-class. All these verbs were originally inflected like audio; but the accident of their short root-syllable (in such early forms as *fúgīs, *fugītū́rus *fugisétis which later on became fúgĭs, fugĭtū́rus fugĕrētīs ) brought great parts of their paradigm under this Law, and the rest followed suit; but true forms like fugīre, cupīre, morīrī never altogether died out of the spoken language; St. Augustine, for instance, confesses in 387 A.D. (Epist. iii. 5) that he does not know whether cupi or cupiri is the Pass. Inf. of cupio; hence Italn. fuggire ‘to flee,’ morīre ‘to die,’ Fr. fuir, mourir.