> Mine (Kennedy's Latin Primer) says the consonantal <i> was
> pronounced double in these words. What are we to do? Weigh the
> grammars?
We are linguists! We need to be able to assess traditional grammars and
know where they are speaking nonsense. We need to know, for example, that
L&S's etymologies are notoriously unreliable. We need to know that
traditional grammars were for schoolboys who had to write Latin verse, and
needed to know how to scan the written eius, which looks as if it should be
short-short.
In any language, we need a critical approach to the grammars and
dictionaries. Latin is no different.
Peter