Editing Umbrian language (section)

====Initial stress and syncope====

At some point early in the history of all Indo-European Italic languages, the accent seems to have shifted to the initial syllable of words as a stress accent, since non-initial syllables are regularly lost or weakened. Since the same pattern occurs in the history of [[Etruscan language|Etruscan]], this must be assumed to be an areal feature. (By the time of classical Latin, the accent had shifted in that language to more of an Ancient Greek pattern--on the third syllable from the end (antepenult) unless the last syllable was long, in which case it fell on the second to last syllable (the penult).) {{sfn|Buck|1904|p=101}} The degree to which these shifts can be connected to similar shifts to initial stress in Celtic and Germanic is unclear; for discussion see J. Salmons' ''Accentual Change and Language Contact''. <ref>Salmons, Joseph (1992), ''Accentual Change and Language Contact'', Stanford University Press</ref>

Examples: 
Loss of unstressed short -e-: *''onse'' "shoulder" < *''omesei'', compare Latin ''umerus''; ''destre'' "on the right" < *''deksiterer''; ''ostendu'' "present" (imperative) < *''obs-tendetōd'', compare Latin ''ostendito''.<ref>Poultney, J.W. "Bronze Tables of Iguvium" 1959 p. 45 https://archive.org/details/bronzetablesofig00poul/page/n19/mode/2up</ref>