diphthong -ui-?

[wissen]

<br />In Perfect Indicative conjugations of moneo, -e- is changed to -u-,<br />then do the -u- and -i- in the ending combine to a diphthong? And what about the stress, e.g. monui'mus or monu'imus?<br /><br />Thanks,<br />Ah-Lang<br />

[Milito]

No, they don't make a dipthong. As I recall, the true "ui" dipthong is an extremely rare creature, appearing only in the words "huic", "cui", "huius" and "cuius", "qui", and their relatives. <br /><br />Since a dipthong is a pair of vowels which combine to form one sound, from what I have observed, the pair of vowels remains inseparable, functioning to all intents and purposes as a single "letter". For example, "ae" forms a dipthong, and you can see it in the genitive ending for first declension nouns - you have to add the whole dipthong to the noun stem. In the case of the perfect stem for "moneo", the "u" is part of the stem, and therefore won't become part of a dipthong.<br /><br />Since I don't in the least claim to be an expert on the subject, anyone with better/different information, please advise!<br /><br />Kilmeny

[benissimus]

I might add that since the I is long and the U is short, that they cannot be a dipthong

[Vadilius]

In the books I have read it was described quite differently.<br /><br />1) The Latin diphtonges are only ae, oe, au and eu. Therefore "ui" never can be a diphtong, it always is pronounced as two separate vowels.<br />2) "Monuimus" - it's perfect. In perfect the first vowel "i" of the ending "-imus" is short. Therefore it cannot keep the stress, and the stress is thrown back to the preceding syllable/vowel "u".<br />3) A vowel before another vowel is always short. So the "u" must be short either.<br />4) The words "huic", "cui", "huius", "qui" are really pronounced "hujic", "cuji", "hujus", "kvi" ("j" = English "y"). There are no diphtonges in them.

[Milito]

I was quoting both Wheelock and the "Intensive Latin Course" (whose authors I now forget - naturally....) on the "ui" dipthong, and the examples cited. However, way back in the mists of time when I took my first Latin course, (1993 is now "the mists of time"), I recall my prof stating that "ui" was a very rare dipthong. It could be that it's lost its status as such in the mean time, or that not all books figure it's important enough to note.<br /><br />Kilmeny