The Latin feminine o-Stems

To complete Brosman's (1994) account of the development of feminine gender in Indo-European following the separation of Anatolian, the otherwise unexplained phenomenon of feminine o-stem nouns with inanimate referents, found uniquely in Greek & Latin, is addressed by examining potential cognates of 73 Latin nouns of this type & critically reviewing previous accounts of their origin. Based on the virtual absence of Greek cognates to the Latin stems under study, it is concluded that feminine o-stems are an independent development in each language; similar evidence from other languages rules out conversion of inherited o-stems to feminines, suggested by Karl Brugmann (1911) among others. Based on formal similarities of the potential cognates of Latin o-stem feminines to cognates of diphthongal nouns, it is suggested that the Latin stems under study represent a conversion of inherited feminine diphthongal o(i/u)-stems to secondary o-stems. 9 References. J. Hitchcock