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

[Eduard Selleslagh]

-----Original Message-----
From: Nik Taylor <fortytwo at ufl.edu>
Date: Tuesday, June 01, 1999 3:02 AM

[snip]

>However, that diphthongizing only resulted when it was /O/, descended
>from Latin short /o/, long /o:/ evolved into /o/, which remained /o/,
>thus ho:ra became hora, not *huera, while ossum (?) became hueso.  /au/
>became long /o:/, so of course it wasn't diphthongized.  /aurum/ became
>/o:ru/, which naturally became /oro/ in Spanish and Italian.

[Ed Selleslagh]

Sp. hueso comes from Lat. os (gen. ossis), 'bone', not to be confounded with
Lat. os (gen. oris), 'mouth'.  The -o ending in Spanish is the result of
blind analogy since it is normally the result of acc. -um (nom. -us) of
o-stem words cf. lobo < lupus).

Ed.