[tied] Re: -s -> -i

--- In cybalist@..., Miguel Carrasquer <mcv@...> wrote:

> On Sat, 24 Aug 2002 09:35:10 -0000, "tgpedersen" <tgpedersen@...>

wrote:

>
> >So after the -i spread to other conjugations, it was found not to

be

> >good enough in the conjugation it came from? Hm! But your proposal
> >doesn't explain that after all this reshuffle in Romance, somehow
> >West Romance ends up with all the -s'es and East Romance with the
> >vowels.
>
> As I said, final -s was lost in East Romance (> y after stressed

vowel, > 0

> after unstressed), so it would have been hard indeed for East

Romance to end up

> with all the s'es.

Circular. Final -s was lost in East Romance because there was a rule
that told it to go away? But why did the -s/-V follow the front line
of Justinian's empire?

>And as I also mentioned, the Rhaeto-Romance masc. plural is
> in -i (at least in some of the dialects), so not all the vowels

ended up in the

> East.

If North Italian has -s, I might explain that as a local shibboleth
by a population that didn't have much reason to get involved in the
strife between East Rome and the "Germanic migrant" states. As for
the latter forming a block: Contemporary sources speak of Vandal
pirates dominating the Western Mediterranean. As people in Holland
and England know, one man's pirate is another man's navy. One reason
that's been quoted for the demise of Rome is deforestation of
especially Spain (the Roman conquest of Spain was made difficult by
the deep forests of the country), thus the sea became dominated by
ships built elsewhere (and once the Vandals were in Africa, they
would be as stuck there as the Scandinavians in Greenland or the
Guanche).

>
> =======================
> Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
> mcv@...

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