I nominativi plurali in -e(i)s della seconda declinazione. Costituzione di una classe morfologica

In Latin epigraphic sources, a morpheme -e(i)s is sometimes attested as the plural nominative of masculine -o stems. Currently labelled as «irregular», this morpheme is rather a prototypically-structured morphological category, whose members share both formal and semantic features, although at different degrees. The development of this category is here explained in the framework of «lexical connectionism». Finally, an hypothesis is put forward on the origin of this morpheme, which probably arose in a bilingual Oscan/Latin context.