The Scottish Celtic review

The Laws of Auslaut in Irinh. 191THE LAWS OF AUSLAUT IN IRISH.Continued from Page lOG.(Translated from an important paper by Profr. Windisch, of Leipzig, in the. Beitr.zur Geschichte der Denlschen Sprache mid Literatur, Vol. iv., 1877, andrevised hij the Author.)EXCURSUS.Apparent and real exceptions to the Laws of Aiislaut discussedin the preceding Article.I. Forms with i before the vowel of the last syllable.1. Here come under consideration the noun-stems in ia (Z. 229)247) and the present-stems in ia (Z. 435.) This ia was originallydissyllabic ;and, therefore, the i, being the vowel of the penultimatesyllable, was retained but influenced by the vowel of thelast syllable. Thus, e originated from i when originally followedby a, as, e.g., in the nom. sing. masc. aile, for prehistoric ali-as, Lat.alius. The e of aile has originated exactly like the e of fer(B. I. 1) : it has never been long, since a contraction, for example,like that in Goth, hairdeis, has never taken place here.In the same way, the fem. aile has originated from ali-a, and soin other examples. Ebel (Beitr. zur Vergl. Spr. i. 166) thoughtit not impossible that contracted forms existed as intermediatebetween the historic and the ground forms (alias, *ales, aile).The correctness, however, of our view is proved also by thefact that the e of the ?rt-stems is broad, with a tendencytowards a, like the e offer. New Iv.fear.Hence, even as early asOld Irish, we find a instead of e in certain words, not only inamra found alongside of wmre (wonderful, wonder), but also ingorta found alongside of gorte (hunger^, in e'sca (moon), and others.In connection with this point, we maj', likewise, call attention tothe pronoun se fhoc), nom. and ace. to the dat. siu (Z. 347). Thisse contains the stem sia ; but if a contraction had taken place, thelong c would have been preserved in this monosyllabic word as ine'(he) = 01d Lat. eis.Every doubt in regard to the correctness of our view is removedby forms like mdidea (glorietur), 3rd sing. pres. conjunctive (likehera A. II. 5, but from a present-stem in ia). Muidea, for prehistoricmddiut, has preserved the vowel which modified thepreceding i, because it was originally a long d with a consonantfollowintr.