Do fourth-declension neuter nouns end in -ŭ or -ū?

Question

Note that the nominative neuter ending -u might have been pronounced either as -ŭ or -ū; it seems that we don't have any clear evidence either way for the quality of the vowel in this context.

This strikes me as very odd—I always thought it was known to be a long -ū. Are we really unsure what the quantity of this vowel was, despite evidence in poetry (and potentially fossilized forms going into Romance)? Or am I misunderstanding the answer here?

Hmm, apparently two hypotheses have been proposed, short u (e.g. Pedro Manuel Suárez-Martínez) and long u (e.g. Levente László), e.g. https://akjournals.com/view/journals/068/42/1-4/article-p133.xml I haven't read any of those though, so no opinion yet — Alex B., Jun 10 '23 at 21:44

score 4 · Answer 1 · answered Jun 10 '23 at 11:35

4

Kennedy §55 suggests ū with no discussion. But also says only three 4th neuters in common use (genu, cornu, veru). L&S also lists as long.

Aen. 1.320 has it long: nuda genu, nodoque sinus collecta fluentis

answered Jun 10 '23 at 11:35

Alexandre

481
6

Pecū is also somewhat common. – Cairnarvon Jun 10 '23 at 13:37

Do fourth-declension neuter nouns end in -ŭ or -ū?

1 Answers1