time; and I have thought it lawful, on the ground of convenience, to write SUUM, EQUUS, CUI, CUIUS. U and v do not belong to the same alphabet, V being epigraphic, and U cursive, and therefore do not properly denote the distinction between vowel and consonant. But as they have been conventionally accepted for vowel and consonant signs, it may be permissible to use them in the same alphabet for convenience' sake. I have therefore printed such combinations as VULTUS, UVA, NOVUM, instead of UULTUS, VVLTVS or VOLTVS, UUA or VVA, NOVOM.
The same rule of vowel and consonant should strictly apply to I and J, and I can only defend the exclusion of J by the argument that J was unknown to the ancients.
The MSS. of Catullus and inscriptions of his age frequently, but not universally, have EI where later authors wrote I; QVEI FVREI LEIBEREI for QVI FVRI LIBERI. I have given I in all cases.
In compound words such as ATTRIBUTUS (ADT.), I have in most cases preferred assimilation as being phonetic, whereas the etymologically correct forms (ADTRIBUTUS, &c), favoured by grammarians, are for the most part of later date.
The terminations -IS, -ELS, -ES were all in use for accusative plural: and no rigid rule can be drawn. I have followed generally Brambach's[1] rules, bearing also in mind Munro's remarks on this heading
- ↑ Die Neugestaltung der Lateinischen Orthographie, von Wilhelm Brambach, Leipzig 1868; and (by the same author) Hilfsbüchlein für Lateinische Rechtschreibung, translated into ⟨English by⟩ W. Gordon McCabe, A.M., New York 1877.
