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A new interpretation of Lachmann’s Law

  • Alessandro De Angelis EMAIL logo and Annamaria Chilà
Published/Copyright: October 31, 2015
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Abstract

In Latin, a short vowel followed by a voiced plosive undergoes lengthening in the past participle (Lachmann’s law). Many of these ppp. show a nasal segment inherited from the present or perfect stem. In a few ppp. moving from a dental stem, such as pēnsus, spōnsus etc., such a spreading provides the condition for the formation of the cluster -ns- (<*-nd-+-to). By observing the supposed omission of -n- in some of these verbal forms (e.g.: frēsus vs. frĕndo), regardless of the effective status of the process, as opposed to its retention in other ones (e.g.: pēnsus vs. pĕndeo/pĕndo), Latin speakers could have hypothesized that all ppp. forms of this group were originally provided with -n-, see e.g. frēsus<*frĕnsus, with loss of -n- and compensatory lengthening of the preceding vowel. The ‘NS-lengthening’ rule might represent an early trigger of the vowel lengthening described by Lachmann. Such a lengthening analogically spread to other ppp., according to a connectionist lexical process.

Acknowledgements

This paper represents the result of an ongoing, fruitful collaboration between the two authors. The following division is only for academic purposes: A.C. §§ 1, 2, 3, 7; A.D. §§ 4, 5, 6, 6.1., 6.2. A preliminary version of the present work was presented at the 17th International Colloquium of Latin Linguistics (Rome, May 20th–May 25th 2013). We are grateful to Loretta Del Tutto Palma, Marco Onorato, Paolo Poccetti and one anonymous reviewer for their comments and suggestions. We take full responsibility for our own work.

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Published Online: 2015-10-31
Published in Print: 2015-11-1

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