Re: Okay, so...

"B. T. Raven" <nihil@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message 
news:_uKdnTJSirt9lcLVnZ2dnUVZ_qTinZ2d@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Genitive singular marker -is in the third declension was (and often is) 
> pronounced short, like the end of the English word "miss." The ablative 
> plural marking in the first and second declensions -is was pronounced
like 
> the end of the proper family name "Meese." So there would be no
confusion 
> even in rapid speech.

Is that certain? Church Latin seems to have the same "i" in both places. 
When I was a English chorister, we were drilled into making the
distinction 
by a blue-stocking lady who taught both (classical) Latin and music; but
in 
broadcasts and recordings I rarely if ever hear "-eece" in "Gloria in 
excelsis" -- always "iss".

It's not just a matter of length: there are different symbols in phonetics

for the "i"s in "****p" [I]  and "sheep" [i], and the lengthening symbol
[:] 
isn't used in "sheep". The [I] sound doesn't exist in some languages,
where 
all i's are [i], and that is apparently true of Italian and Italianate 
Latin. Various transcriptions of ecclesiastical Latin use the same
phonetic 
[i] symbol for "cordis" genitive and "bonis" ablative; no [i:] for the 
ablative.

Alan Jones