Sound Changes

[albertde]

One thing I have noticed in learning Latin is that a lot of the so-called irregularities are sound changes.<br /><br />For example: (stem ends in g + ending begins with s yields x) <br /><br />For short, I write: g + s -> x<br />another one is: g + t -> ct<br /><br />I have three questions:<br />

• Does anyone have a list of these changes that they would share?
• For the verb absum would the perfect stem be afui or abfui (or both)?
• What about obsum?

<br /><br />Thanks in advance.

[albertde]

Sorry, don't agree: do a Google search on afui and afuturus and they pop up all over the place.

[benissimus]

I was careful to say that it had only occurred that way when I have seen it thus far <br /><br />This entry, http://lysy2.archives.nd.edu/cgi-bin/words.exe?afui , shows some alternatives for the regular absum, abesse, abfui, abfuturus.

[Keesa]

[quote author=benissimus link=board=3;threadid=674;start=0#6378 date=1064150752]<br />I was careful to say that it had only occurred that way when I have seen it thus far <br />[/quote]<br /><br />The only way to be right all the time is to make sure that you can never be wrong!

[albertde]

Thank you for your replies. Part of the problem with a literary language like Latin is that you can't ask a native speaker!

[Moerus]

Hey, <br /><br />you noticed the sound-changes very well. There are entire books about it. You can also see the changes from old-Latin to Classical Latin and Medieval Latin. Most of the sound changes you can check in a historical grammar, like Niederman, Phonétique historique du Latin. Or in English: Palmer, The Latin language. The first is an entire book about it. <br />If you only want to see the changes in classical Latin, you can also find them sometimes in regular grammars. <br /><br />With 'abesse' you have absum, afui, (afuturus)<br /> 'adesse' you have adsum, sometimes assum, adfui and sometimes affui. <br />Obesse = obsum, obfui <br /><br />In Rome with most words you had two manners of orthographe; a conservative and a progressive. The conservative was the etymological one and in the progressive way they wrote nearly like they spoke. <br />There was always one orthography the most cummon one.<br />Besides obtineo, sometimes we also find optineo, cause that was how they pronounced it! <br />If you really want to be sure, you can always see in a dictionnary or in one of the books mentioned above. <br /><br />Greetz, <br />Moerus.

[benissimus]

Just for your own reference, an "X" can be formed by the following combinations:<br /><br />G+S i.e.- rex, reg-<br />C+S i.e.- dux, duc-<br />H+S i.e.- traho, traxi<br />V (consonant)+S i.e.- vivo, vixi<br /><br /><br /><br />And as for G+T becoming C+T, that is just basic consonant weakening which is found in all Indo-European languages:<br /><br />B weakens to P<br />G weakens to C/K<br />V (modern V) weakens to F<br />ZH weakens to SH<br />J (modern J) weakens to CH<br />TH (English) becomes TH<br />Z (English) becomes S<br /><br />Consonants are most often weakened before a T or an S. Try to say one of the harder consonants (the ones on the left side) before a T or an S qucikly and you will see why we weaken it.

[Keesa]

As your article explains.

[benissimus]

Wow, I'm sorry for my first response... I don't know what I was thinking! ::)

[albertde]

My purpose in bringing this up was selfish. By having a list of sound changes and knowing what and when to expect them to occur, I would then have fewer so-called irregularities to remember when dealing with parts of verbs and declensions of nouns. <br /><br />Example, if I know that: t+s->s, then I can remember pont as the stem and use an ending of s in the nominative to get pons. This means one less irregularity.<br /><br />Another example, if I remember a prefix of prod- and a stem of sum and note that: d+s->s to get prosum and with a stem of futurus and note that: d+f->f to get profuturus and then when the stem is -est, I get prodest since d+vowel->d+vowel.<br />

[ingrid70]

With prosum, it's probably easier to remember that pro has no d before a vowel (or has d before a consonant). Similar with posse: pos before an s, pot before a vowel (pos-sum, pot-es)<br /><br />If you try to make a rule d+s -> s, or d+f -> f, you could get into trouble with other words (adesse would have afui (= ab-fui) instead of affui; obesse would have ofui etc.). See also Moerus's post (who's far more learned than I am, I just worked through the compounds of esse recently )<br /><br />Ingrid

[albertde]

Ingrid: I've never seen affui but have seen afui. Some of these changes are fairly constant others are not. The tutorial on Perfect Stems has gone a long way in helpiing me.

[ingrid70]

[quote author=albertde link=board=3;threadid=674;start=0#6840 date=1064503578]<br />Ingrid: I've never seen affui but have seen afui. Some of these changes are fairly constant others are not. The tutorial on Perfect Stems has gone a long way in helpiing me.<br />[/quote]<br /><br />according to my grammar, affui can be used instead of adfui, but my exercise book uses adfui only. It does use afui consistently for abfui though.<br /><br />Ingrid

[wazabell]

the principle parts of absent are absum abesse afui afuturus and for present it is adsum adesse adfui adfuturus.