Re: [tied] Timing of ablaut

On Tue, 23 Sep 2003 19:43:16 +0100, P&G <petegray@...> wrote:

>>We have *nepo:ts,
>>*meh1no:ts etc. in the nom. sg.
>
>There are also cases where the lengthening does not appear. Perhaps these
>are internal to the various languages concerned, e.g all those words in
>Latin where the nominative ends in short -es < *-its, from -it- stems.
>miles, comes, superstes etc

I suspect that's the result of a later shortening. Shouldn't unstressed
*-its have given Latin *-is (as e.g. verbal thematic *-es does)? In Old
Latin the ending was written -ess, which I would derive from *-e:ts rather
than *-its.


=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
mcv@...