12. Syncope of Final Syllables.—It is possible that the frequent but far from universal syncope of final syllables in Latin (especially before -s, as in mēns, which represents both Gr. μένος and Sans. matís = Ind.-Eur. mṇtís, Eng. mind) is due also to this law operating on such combinations as bona mēns and the like, but this has not yet been clearly shown. In any case the effects of any such phonetic change have been very greatly modified by analogical changes. The Oscan and Umbrian syncope of short vowels before final s seems to be an independent change, at all events in its detailed working. The outbreak of the unconscious affection of slurring final syllables may have been contemporaneous.
13. In post-Plautine Latin words accented on the ante-antepenult:—
(i.) suffered syncope in the short syllable following the accented syllable (bálineae became bálneae, puéritia became puértia (Horace), cólumine, tégimine, &c., became cúlmine, tégmine, &c., beside the trisyllabic cólumen, tégimen) unless
(ii.) that short vowel was e or i, followed by another vowel (as in párietem, múlierem, Púteoli), when, instead of contraction, the accent shifted to the penult, which at a later stage of the language became lengthened, pariétem giving Ital. paréếte, Fr. paroi, Puteóli giving Ital. Pozzuốli.
The restriction of the accent to the last three syllables was completed by these changes, which did away with all the cases in which it had stood on the fourth syllable.
14. The Law of the Brevis Brevians.—Next must be mentioned another great phonetic change, also dependent upon accent, which had come about before the time of Plautus, the law long known to students as the Brevis Brevians, which may be stated as follows (Exon, Hermathena (1903), xii. 491, following Skutsch in, e.g., Vollmöller’s Jahresbericht für romanische Sprachwissenschaft, i. 33): a syllable long by nature or position, and preceded by a short syllable, was itself shortened if the word-accent fell immediately before or immediately after it—that is, on the preceding short syllable or on the next following syllable. The sequence of syllables need not be in the same word, but must be as closely connected in utterance as if it were. Thus mốdō became módŏ, vŏlūptấtēm became vŏlŭ(p)tấtem, quḯd ēst? became quid ĕst? either the s or the t or both being but faintly pronounced.
It is clear that a great number of flexional syllables so shortened would have their quantity immediately restored by the analogy of the same inflexion occurring in words not of this particular shape; thus, for instance, the long vowel of ấmā and the like is due to that in other verbs (pulsā, agitā) not of iambic shape. So ablatives like modö, sonō get back their -ō, while in particles like modo, “only,” quōmodo, “how,” the shortened form remains. Conversely, the shortening of the final -a in the nom. sing. fem. of the a-declension (contrast lūnă with Gr. χωρᾷ) was probably partly due to the influence of common forms like eă, bonă, mală, which had come under the law.
15. Effect on Verb Inflexion.—These processes had far-reaching effects on Latin inflexion. The chief of these was the creation of the type of conjugation known as the capio-class. All these verbs were originally inflected like audio, but the accident of their short root-syllable, (in such early forms as *fúgīs, *fugītṹrus, *fugīsếtis, &c., becoming later fúgĭs, fugĭtṹrus, fugĕrếtis) brought great parts of their paradigm under this law, and the rest followed suit; but true forms like fugīre, cupīre, morīri, never altogether died out of the spoken language. St Augustine, for instance, confessed in 387 A.D. (Epist. iii. 5, quoted by Exon, Hermathena (1901), xi. 383,) that he does not know whether cupi or cupiri is the pass. inf. of cupio. Hence we have Ital. fuggīre, morīre, Fr. fuir, mourir. (See further on this conjugation, C. Exon, l.c., and F. Skutsch, Archiv für lat. Lexicographie, xii. 210, two papers which were written independently.)
16. The question has been raised how far the true phonetic shortening appears in Plautus, produced not by word-accent but by metrical ictus—e.g. whether the reading is to be trusted in such lines as Amph. 761, which gives us dedisse as the first foot (tribrach) of a trochaic line “because the metrical ictus fell on the syllable ded-”—but this remarkable theory cannot be discussed here. See the articles cited and also F. Skutsch, Forschungen zu Latein. Grammatik und Metrik, i. (1892); C. Exon, Hermathena (1903) xii. p. 492, W. M. Lindsay, Captivi (1900), appendix.