Re: [tied] Timing of ablaut

On Wed, 24 Sep 2003 19:40:04 +0100, P&G <petegray@...> wrote:

>> >There are also cases where the lengthening does not appear.
>> I suspect that's the result of a later shortening. In Old
>> Latin the ending was written -ess, which I would derive from *-e:ts rather
>> than *-its.
>
>Old Latin (eg Plautus) does write -ess, presumably from -ets. But there is
>not sign whatever of the vowel being lengthened.

Not attested, no. My point was that, as far as I know the reduction rules
for unstressed vowels in Latin, which is not very far, I would have
expected unstressed *-its to have given -is(s), not -es(s). Is that
correct?

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