The Scottish Celtic review

192 The Laws of Auslaut in, Irish.One must, on the whole, be cautious in regard to the assumingof contractions in Irish. There are certainly such, as, e.g., in de'denach(finalis), the first syllable of which has originated fi'om deved,as is proved by Cymr. diwedd, Ir. dead (finis) Z. 57. But theprevious forms have been much more frequently mutilated throughthe loss of sounds by 6'/c0X(>//-i? and o-w/f>;(ri?.2. An example of erw/fi^o-i? we have in the fi(,-auslaut of Irishwords. To the dat. sing. Jiu7' (viro, B. XVII. 1) correspondsailiu = Gr. aXXw ; to the 1st sing. pros, do-bvnr (I give,B. XI. 6) corresponds no rdidiu, (loquor) = Goth, rodja. Also inailiu and rdidiu, u no longer forms by itself a syllable, althoughit is retained in its old position, but has joined itself closely tothe preceding i, with which it has come to form one syllabic ;e.g.,ba mdaniru araillu (gYea.ter was... .than another wonder—Brocc.Hy. 40) forms a half-verse of seven syllables, and ni airmiii (Ireckon not) is used (ibid. 41) as equivalent to three syllables.But as do-hiur has become also do-bur (Z. 428), with completesuppression of the original vowel of the root-syllable, so, likewise,ess-eirgu (Z. 230, Ir. -eirge, a stem like Old Baktr. arezya), withsuppression of i, is found in Old Irish beside es-eirgiu; and, in likemanner, do-nmu (enumero) is found beside do-riniiu (Z. 435).The explanation of indicative forms like rddlxi, holds good also forthe conjunctive forms gnio, beo, noticed under B. XI. U : theyare, in the same way, monosyllables formed through the coalescingof the vowel sounds.The same relations we observe in the nom. sing, of the stemsformed by the suffix tian (stronger form tidn, weak form tin), inwhich the Irish agrees so beautifully with the Latin : Ir. er-mitiu(reverentia) contains exactly the same word-form as Lat. mentio,only that the latter is trisyllabic, whilst Ir. mitiu, on the otherhand, is dissyllabic. The i is completely suppressed in ejxttu(intcritus), for at-bel-tiu (Z. 2G4). Cf Ebel in Beitr. zur. Verg.Spr. i. 170. In the remaining cases the Irish and Latin differ, thelatter having everywhere the stronger, and the former everywherethe weak form of the suffix ; e.g., in the genitive, the Irish iser-mitcH (for prehistoric mentin-as), whilst the Latin is mentiSnis.4. To this class belong also the comparative (Z. 274). Ir. laigiu(less) is identical with Skr. lagldydn, lagMyas, Gr. eXda-aodv (Lat.levior, for lehvios contains the suffix of the positive). Thequestion is, which form of the suffix is the basis of the Irish