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The <o/u> graphemic oscillation in Latin epigraphy : some preliminary sociolinguistic remarks

“…This applies, in particular, to the spellings veitae (CL vītae: line 10) and parenteis (CL parentĭs: line 5). Indeed, the digraph <ei> is used to represent an original monophthong in the first case (CL vīvo < PIE *g w ih 3 -ue/o-) 39 and a short /i/ in the latter. Both these graphic tendencies go back to the monophthongization of the Old Latin /ei̯ / diphthong which merged with the original /iː/ phoneme around 150 B.C., determining such reverse writings.…”

Sabellic Textile Terminology

“…U. habina: 81 A sacrificial animal, believed to be of the genus ovinum, perhaps "lamb"; if so it may be derived from *ag u̯ īnā, a substantivization of an adjective *ag u̯ īno/-ā from Italic *ag u̯ nīno/-ā with dissimilatory loss of the first n after the addition of the suffix -īno-(cf. Latin agnus, Greek ἀμνός, both meaning 'lamb' 82 ). The h-must then be due to the influence of another word, e.g.…”

“…also Oscan καποροιννα[ι 88. According to de Vaan,89 the a-vocalism makes it a likely candidate for a loanword, but at least the word is common to Italic and Germanic, and Celtic has a synonym in Old Irish gabor, Welsh…”

Notes on an old problem of Hungarian historical vocalism: the sporadic (?) change of Uralic *u > Hungarian a, á

“…In a way this can be understood in a similar vein as Ringe's quotation above, meaning that some degree of regularity has to be assumed in order for the comparative method to work. Clackson's remark has been criticized by De Vaan (2008: 1230.…”