Latin verbal system: how perfect and aorist joined in the new perfect?

[Rick Mc Callister]

By the time <causa> became /ko:sa/, the long /o:/ vs. short /o/ dichotomy
had become one of "open" /O/ vs. "closed" /o/ --hadn't it?

Wouldn't <causa> /kausa, kauza, kawsa, kawza/ have gone through the
intermediate step of /kowsa, kowza/ before becoming /ko:sa, ko:za/?

I'm thinking of Portuguese causa /kawza/ > cousa /kowza/ > coisa /koyza/

>petegray wrote:

>> For example, the common (in both senses) pronunciation
>> of -au- as /o:/ is "extremely well attested".   Yet in Romance the vowel
>> seems to have been not /o:/ but short /o/,

>Certainly not in Spanish, at any rate.  causa became /ko:sa/, to /kosa/
>(short /o/ became /O/), which survived as /kosa/, had it been /kosa/ in
>Vulgar Latin, it would've become /kOsa/ in Old Spanish, and /kwesa/ in
>Modern Spanish, which did not occur.  *Cuesa is not a word.

[ Moderator's comment:
  Actually, it was Nik Tailor who wrote the more recent text above.
  --rma ]

>"It's bad manners to talk about ropes in the house of a man whose father
>was hanged." - Irish proverb
>http://members.tripod.com/~Nik_Taylor/X-Files
>http://members.tripod.com/~Nik_Taylor/Books.html
>ICQ: 18656696
>AIM Screen-name: NikTailor