The development of the intervocalic laryngeal in Latin
The development of the intervocalic laryngeal in Latin

Summary/Abstract: The development of laryngeals in the traditional interpretation depends purely on their sound environment and at least in the development into Latin no role is ascribed to in what morpheme or morphemes and on what position within the morpheme the relevant sound sequence occurs. However, in the process of elimination of laryngeals the extra-phonetic factors evidently also come into play that complicate the well-arranged rules and that have not yet been systematically explained. The article is concerned with a partial problem of this complex issue, namely the question of development of intervocalic laryngeal on the morphemic boundary between the root and the suffix. In Latin there are examples where for semantic reasons the deletion of the laryngeal is not followed by the contraction of vowels, but where an epenthetic consonant occurs in its place.

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