The Scottish Celtic review

;The Laws of AasiaiU ia Irinh. 315grammar along witli tlio s-preterite, I am iiirliiiud to consider themas mutilated present-forms, the preterite signitication of which hasoriginated through the particle ro, as that of the ludogerm. imperfecthas originated through the augment.In the denominatives,at least, we have certainly an inorganic shortening. For, if, e.r/.,a verb, noibaim (I sanctify) is formed from the adjective nvib(holy), the form rondlb (I have .sanctified) can scarcely be anythingelse than a mutilated ro noibti. This mutilation is the same asthat in the second sing, imperative of the second and third conjugations(see p. 30.9). Sometimes the otherwise dropped vowel ispreserved, especially the i of the third conjugation, as, e.g., inro clireti (credidit). By the mutilation the form became isolated,and could, in consequence, receive an aoristic signification.If theroot-verbs hei-e were more abundant, one might even suppose thatthe ancient second aorist had been the starting-point of this remarkablefoi'mation.2. The nominative singular of some 7i-stems.If the nom. sing, of the old stem manman, which is neuter inSanskrit, but not so in Irish, be menme, menma (Z. 264), thevocalic auslaut, in that case, requires a special explanation.For,after the analogy of the secondary stems mentioned above (B.XI. 4)as formed by the suffix man, we should expect also here thenominative formation with original m«, and, in accordance withthis, to find in the nominative singular of the stem menma eithermenm or menem. Ebel supposed (Beitr. zur Vergl. Spr. i. 170)that the preservation of the vowel seemed to have been caused bythe preceding dotible consonant, and mentioned, as a parallel case,the gen. plur. of the nouns of relationship, in which we find alongsideof athar, brdfhar, also athre, brdthre (see above B. V. I).is true, those stems in an, which come under consideration herehave nearly all double consonants before this an, or, at least, havehad them at an eai'lier period, as, e.g., idcha (beard), gen. ulchan ;lurga (leg, shank), gen. lurgan ; Alba (Scotland), gen. Albandm (kidney), gen. dran (with probably a consonant droppedbefore »•') ; leco (cheek), gen. lecan {leco for prehistoric lenco ; cf.' This Irish stem dran is for abran and stands in the same rehition to thePrenestine nefron-es (testicles, kiihieys, cf. Cors.sen's Krit. Nachtr. p. 143),and to the Gr. vepoi, in which the K.-Slav. ime stands to Skr. vdma or Skr. dtito Gr. t/rj