The theme vowels of Latin verbs

Abstract

Latin verbs are traditionally divided into four conjugations, three of which can be readily identified by the terminal vowels of their stems – the so-called ‘theme vowels’. The identification of the theme vowel of the third conjugation is a more controversial matter. This article presents an analysis of the conjugation of regular Latin verbs, in terms of the framework of Distributed Morphology. The analysis departs from earlier analyses in two notable respects: first, following Sommer (1948), the so-called ‘mixed conjugation’ verbs are taken to form a subset of the fourth conjugation, rather than the third, which means that underlyingly their stems end on the theme vowel /iː/; and second, the stems of third-conjugation verbs are analysed as ending on the theme vowel /i/. The earlier part of the article presents the analysis, while the later part argues for those aspects of the analysis that differ from earlier analyses like those of Allen and Greenough (1903), Lieber (1981), Embick (2015) and Halle (2019). As some of the phonological rules postulated apply only to a single conjugation, the idea is briefly explored that the behaviour of Latin theme vowels can be analysed in terms of cophonologies.