Читать книгу An Outline of the Phonology and Morphology of Old Provençal - C. H. Grandgent - Страница 12

20. Latin had the following vowels, which might be long or short: a, e, i, o, u. The diphthongs, æ, œ, au, eu, ui, were always long: æ and œ, however, were simplified into monophthongs, mainly in the Republican epoch, æ being sounded ę̄, œ probably ẹ̄; au retained (save in some popular dialects) its old pronunciation; eu did not occur in any word that survived; ui, in cui, illui, in Vulgar Latin, was accented úi (as in fui). The simple vowels, except a, were, doubtless from early times, slightly different in quality according to their quantity, the long vowels being sounded close, the short open: ẹ̄, ị̄, ọ̄, ụ̄; ę̆, į̆, ǫ̆, ų̆.

21. Between the 1st and the 7th century of our era, the Classic Latin quantity died out: it had apparently disappeared from unstressed vowels as early as the 4th century, from stressed by the 6th. It left its traces, however, as we have seen, upon accentuation (§ 16), and also upon vowel quality, the originally long and short remaining differentiated in sound, if they were accented. Of the unaccented vowels, only i shows sure signs of such a differentiation, and even for i the distinction is evident only in a final syllable: vēnī vēnĭt ＞ vẹnị vẹnįt.