Medial -ur-

On pg. 408 in discussing the desideratives in -uriō, I mention that the short u of this suffix violates Latin phonotactic constraints  since the only short vowel normally permitted before an r in a medial syllable is e.   As I mention in the footnote there are of course obvious analogical cases like augur, auguris, but there is perhaps another source for this sequence.  Original u like all short vowels became e (*swekurī 'father-in-law' gen. sg. > socerī), presumably by general weakening to i and lowering before, but if a labiovelar, and presumably also the  labiovelar glide, precedes the medial vowel the outcome is u, e.g. *per-kwatiō  > percutiō, iekwVna:num > iecunanum (glossed victimarium (Fest. p. 114 M) and derived from the old oblique stem of iecur according to Alan Nussbaum p.c.). What would happen if a u of this sort were followed by an r?  There are no clear cases but it is possible that if the u arose after or as the result of weakening, as is likely, it would be retained. A potential case might be decuria if from *dekwiria (more about that elsewhere).  This idea doesn't lead immediately to an immediate solution to the -uriō question, but it does open some interesting vistas.

The stem-vowel of the gerund and gerundive

On pg. 444 I address the variation in the vowel before -nd- in gerunds and gerundives formed to 3rd and 4th conjugation verbs.  In addition to the observations recorded there I should also have mentioned the discussion of Alfonso Traina in the 2nd edition of his book, Forma e suono. Da Plauto a Pascoli. Bologna: Patron, 129–143. Based chiefly on an examination of the invariant cases of transmission in the manuscripts of Terence, Traina establishes the following tendencies:

After -u, -ṷ-, -qu- the form is always -end- (vivendus).

After a syllable containing o or u the form is predominantly -end-

(ducendus).

After i the form is predominantly -und- (faciundus).

Thus it seems likely that the choice of vowel was governed largely by avoidance of two segments with identical values for roundness.

Lesser-known Historical Grammars of Latin XIII

The book pictured at left was published in 1962 by the  Italian linguist Carlo Tagliavini.  It is the 3rd edition of a work first published in 1938 and 1939. Tagliavini was a master expositor and like his outstanding Le origine delle lingue neolatine this book is a very readable and well organized survey of the material. The most interesting fact I picked up from this book was Tagliavini's statement in the preface that he was not able to complete the section on verbal morphology in 1939 (later added in the second edition of 1949) because he was called away in March of that year on a mission for the Ministero degli Esteri in Poland.  I haven't been able to find anything about this mission in other sources although I haven't examined Jerzy Borejsza's book about Poland, Germany and Italy on the eve of  WWII.  Interestingly, Tagliavini was a noted Albanologist and Italy's invasion of Albania took place in April of 1939.  Could this have been the real reason for his sudden departure? Pure speculation.

iuxtā

On pg. 357 I give the proto-form of iuxtā as *iugistā. The zero-grade u with a short vowel goes 

against de Vaan 2008:318 and Watkins 1975:530 who specifically notes "a ma connaissance aucune évidence ne nous empêche de postuler un ū longe." But the evidence of Old French, which has joste 'next to' and the derived verb joster 'put side by side, joust' points clearly to a short vowel. See the Dictionnaire étymologique de l'ancien français s.v. Forms with u in the various Romance languages are secondary. This fact has interesting consequences for the morphological analysis of this form. It makes connection with the neuter s-stem iūgera even more difficult, but it also doesn't exactly favor Watkins's deverbal superlative analysis since those forms too tend to have full-grades. 

In any case connection with the root of iungō is unavoidable and this means that the g of iug- has been devoiced before a voiceless consonant without the operation of Lachmann's Law.  The absence of lengthening—cf. fūsus from *fud-to- with LL—might be explained in a number of different ways.  It might be the case that LL didn't apply to secondary sequences arising by syncope (hence maximus, despite its lone apex, really doesn't have a long vowel). Or it might be the case that it did apply to such sequences but only if the voiced stop was temporarily reintroduced on the basis of related forms.  In the case of iuxtā the derivational connection with iungō was obscure enough that this didn't happen.

Lesser-known Historical Grammars of Latin XII

The work pictured at left is the first of a two volume grammar of Latin combining general didactic info with historical comparative detail in smaller print.  Volume 2 (1918) covers syntax. A third volume to cover prosody and stylistics was promised but apparently never produced. The author Eduardo García de Diego was a student of the great Hispanist Ramón Menendez Pidal (1869-1968!) to whom this volume is dedicated. He was also an editor of the Latin glossaries from the monastery of Silos (1934). The book is only found in this hemisphere at Stanford and UC Berkeley.  The degree of detail is average; the layout attractive.

Old Italian fie, fieno

On pg. 525 I say that erō is the only Latin future to survive into Romance in OFr. ier, OOc. er, and Sp. 2nd sg. pres. eres. But this is not correct.  The Latin future of fiō, fiam, fiēs etc. did survive into Old Italian, and beyond as an archaism as an alternative future for essere 'to be'. The expected forms should have had an alternation between an a proper to the first singular and an e proper to all the other persons. However, the a allomorph was generalized to the other persons pretty early.  Here are some examples:

3rd sg. fie: (Albertan. cap. 22): dopo me avrò erede lo quale io non so s'egli fie savio ovvero stolto, e fie signore del mio acquisto, e delli miei beni.

3rd sg. fia (Vita dei santi. padri. (S. Antonio, Abate, pag. 25): allora certo fia diritta l'anima nostra, quando la naturale sua integritade non sia maculata da peccato.

3rd pl. fien(o) (Petr. Canz. 127.4): Quai  fien ultime, lasso, e qua' fien prime?

3rd pl. fian(o) (Tass. Ger. 20.16): Fian per lo piu senza vigor, senz'arte.

Numasioi Vindicated

On pg. 23 n. 2 I mention Hartmann's vindication of the genuineness of the Praenestine fibula and its inscription. This famous inscription (MANIOS MED FHE:FHAKED NVMASIOI), if genuine, would be our single oldest piece of Latin.  Hartmann—to the extent that I am qualified to judge—seems to make a good case that the scientific testing supposedly proving the falsity of the document was flawed or inconclusive, but the form NVMASIOI still seemed a bit of a problem.  Numasios would appear to be the ancestor of praenomen Numerius, but Numerius if related to numerus 'number' should go back to *numesios vel. sim.  So either  (1) Numasios is not the ancestor of Numerius, (2) Numerius has nothing to do with numerus, or (3) the fibula is a fake.  Possibilities (1) and (2) are perfectly plausible, so no strong argument against the genuineness of the inscription can be drawn from the form NVMASIOI, but recent developments have put to rest any doubts about this name.

Through the kindness of Rex Wallace I've been informed about a recently published archaic Etruscan inscription on an aryballos from the "area ceretana" bearing the inscription (Poetto and Facchetti 2009:369): 

mi mlac mlakas larθus elaivana araθia numasianas

‘io (sono) il buon/bel (vaso) oleario di Araθ Numasiana per il buon Larθu’.

The form numasianas supports Numasios and makes it certain  that Numasios is unconnected with numerus. 

Poetto, Massimo and Giulio Facchetti, 2009. L’aryballos di Araθ Numasiana. Oebalus 4:365-384.