J.B. Bury. Dublin scholarship
has in this matter been markedly correct.
_CLASSIFICATION OF WORDS ACCORDING TO THEIR LATIN STEMS._
In classification it seems simplest to take the words according
to their Latin stems. We must, however, first deal with a class of
adjectives borrowed bodily from the Latin nominative masculine with
the insertion of a meaningless _o_ before the final _-us_.[1] These
of course follow the rules given above. In words of more than two
syllables the antepenultimate and stressed vowel is shortened,
as '[)e]mulous' from _[ae]mulus_ and in 'fr[)i]volous' from
_fr[=i]volus_, except where by the 'alias' rule it is long, as in
'egr[=e]gious' from _egr[)e]gius_. Words coined on this analogy also
follow the rules. Thus 'glabrous' and 'fibrous' have the vowels long,
as in the traditional pronunciation of _glabrum_ and _fibrum_, where
the vowels in classical Latin were short. The stressed _u_ being
always long we have 'lug[=u]brious' and 'sal[=u]brious', the length
being independent of the 'alias' rule. Some words ending in _-ous_ are
not of this class. Thus 'odorous' and 'clamorous' appear in Italian as
_odoroso_ and _clamoroso_. Milton has
Son['o]rous mettal blowing Martial sounds.
The Italian is _sonoro_, and our word was simply the Latin _sonorus_
borrowed bodily at a somewhat late period. Hence the stress remains
on the penultima.
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