eius

See also:-eius

Latin

Alternative forms

ejus,eiius,eijus,ejjus

Pronunciation

(Classical Latin)IPA^(key):/ˈei̯.i̯us/,[ˈɛi̯ːʊs̠]
(modern Italianate Ecclesiastical)IPA^(key):/ˈe.jus/,[ˈɛːjus]
The first syllable scans as heavy in Classical Latin verse. In accordance with this, some dictionaries and other linguistic resources mark the "E" in the first syllable with a length marker (ēius/ējus): however, there is no consensus that the vowel itself was long. Historically, some scholars have thought that the first syllable contained a long vowel /eː/ derived by monophthongization of an earlier diphthong [ei̯].^[1]But the geminate consonant /jj/, which was regularly written with single "i" in Latin,^[2]would have rendered the preceding syllable heavy even if the vowel itself was short /e/. Comparepeior^[3]andieiūnus,and see the discussion of intervocalic -i- in Allen 1978:38-40.^[4]An alternative interpretation treats the first syllable as containing a diphthong /ei̯/;^[5]this is essentially equivalent to /ej/, as there is no contrast in Latin between vowel-consonant sequences ending in /j/ and diphthongs ending in i̯. (Cser 2016:31-37 discusses the question of the best phonemic analysis of so-called 'diphthongs' in Latin and concludes that it is preferable to analyze them all as vowel-consonant sequences such as /ej/.)
An iambic pronunciation, /e.jus/ (with a light first syllable) may occur in Plautus.

Determiner

eius

genitive singularofis, ea, id(“anaphoric/cataphoric determiner”):his,of him,her,of her,its,of it; ofthis/ofthat
- 405CE,Jerome,VulgateDaniel.1.2:
  Et tradidit Dominus in manueiusIoachim regem Iudae.
  And the Lord gave Jehoiakim king of Judah intohishand.

Descendants

Sardinian:eju

References

^Raphael Kühner,Friedrich Holzweissig, Carl Stegmann (1912)Ausführliche Grammatik der lateinischen Sprache,2 edition, Hanover: Hahnsche Buchhandlung,page591:“Die Länge des Stammvokalsēim Gen. Sing. — stets ēius — erklärt sich aus der Bildung aus ei̯-i̯o-s; ebenso die fast stets beibehaltene Länge e im Dat. S. aus der Bildung aus ei̯-i-ei. s. § 131 d.”
^András Cser (2016)Aspects of the Phonology and Morphology of Classical Latin(PhD thesis), Budapest, page13:“Gemination is marked in spelling for all consonants except [j], which is rendered invariably with a single ⟨i⟩ or sometimes ⟨j⟩ in modern editorial practice, as in ⟨eius/ejus⟩ [ejjus] ‘his/her’.”
^Nishimura, Kanehiro (2011) “Notes on Glide Treatment in Latin Orthography and Phonology:-iciō, servus, aiō”,inHistorische Sprachforschung / Historical Linguistics,volume124,page193:
the provision of a macron (i.e.,māior,as if the vowel were long) in order to display the syllable weight — the way common in a number of grammar books and dictionaries — is utterly misleading in that it disguises the phonological reality. The same is true of another comparative adjectivepeior'worse' (<*ped-i̯os-,via*-di̯->-i̯i̯-), the verbaiō'say' (<*ag-i̯ō;see §3), and pronouns likeeius(<*esi̯o-s,cf. Ved.asyá).
^W. Sidney Allen (1978)Vox Latina,2nd edition, pages38-39:“With a few exceptions noted below, wherever a single, intervocalic i-consonant is written, it stands for a double consonant, i.e. [yy] [...] the consonant must be double in order to account for the fact that the preceding syllable is always metrically heavy; for the actual vowel isshort”
^Pedro Manuel Suárez-Martínez (2017) “Le vocatif en -ī de la deuxième déclinaison latine”, inPallas‎^[1],volume103:“Comme Moralejo le montre, ces graphies avec un double -ii- reflèteraient la prononciation [ei-yus], due à la distribution syllabique des -i (-ii-) qui existaient, de manière sous-jacente, dans le -ī à l’origine de la forme eius.”

eius

Contents

Latin

Alternative forms

Pronunciation

Determiner

Descendants

See also

References

Further reading