Gothic Online (a course by Todd B Krause and Jonathan Slocum)

[llama_nom]

> Lesson 4
> 
> "In Luke 4.3 we find a nominative form sunáus instead of the 
proper 
> nominative sunus 'son'; a similar form diabuláus replaces the 
proper 
> nominative diabulus in Luke 4.5. It is likely that, shortly after 
> the time of Wulfila (if not before), the diphthong áu was 
> monophthongized and subsequently indistinguishable from u, leading 
> to occasional scribal confusion."
> 
> The fluctuation between <u> and <au> is confined to certain cases 
of 
> the singular of u-stem nouns (the nominative is almost always -
us), 
> and is usually seen as a specific morphological change, rather 
than 
> a general phonetic one.  There is no regular confusion between <u> 
> and <au> elsewhere in stressed or unstressed syllables.  Whether 
or 
> when /áu/ was monophthongised is another question...


Actually anomalous <au> for <u>, or vice versa, is found in all 
cases of the u-stem singular, but especially the acc. and voc.

nom. x4
voc. x8
acc. x10
gen. x5
dat. x3

There are similar examples of confusion between <au> and <u> in both 
roots and inflections of foreign names and loanwords.  But they are 
not generally confused, as far as I know, in the roots of native 
Gothic words, nor in verbal inflections, nor in the plural of u-
stems, as might be expected if <u> and <au> had merged in 
pronunciation.





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