Re: [tied] spylian (romance part)

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "alex_lycos" <altamix@...> wrote:

> Piotr Gasiorowski wrote:
>
>> Of course there is no rhotacism in late _loans_ from Latin
>> (examples could be quoted by the hundred) and in other words of
>> late origin. I dont know why I have the strange feeling you think
>> I dont make the difference between the so called "inherited" word
>> and the late loans from latin. Although I have no historical
>> grammar of Romanian to hand (Miguel or George may comment on the
>> details), the rhotacism of intervocalic /l/ was regular in the
>> inherited vocabulary (<sare> 'salt', <miere> 'honey', <soare>
>> 'sun', <pãdure> 'forest', ect.). My impression is that Latin /ll/
>> was never affected and that its degemination must therefore have
>> been later than rhotacism, cf. pellis > piele 'skin' or mollis >
>> moale 'soft' (as opposed to mola > moarã 'mill').

Quite right. Intervocalic Latin /l/ > Romanian /r/ with regularity
and /ll/ > /l/ (with the exception of -ella > -eauã > -ea, the last
changement being specifical to Daco-Romanian). No Slavic /l/ gives
a Romanian /r/, fact which allows us to precise a deadline for the
rhotacism of intervocalic /l/ in Romanian.

>> What problems have you got with this? What mysteries do you see
>> here?
>
> There are the problems with the words where we do not have this
> rhotacism. And I guess that when a phenomena occurs, then this
> phenomena doesn't make a difference like" here is a Latin word, I
> will rhotacise the intervocalic "l", here is not a Latin word, so
> I wont do that". Normally a such phenomena should affect all the
> words no matter where they come from in the time this phenomena
> works.

Obviously, the historical character of phonetic changes remains a
big unknown for Alex. That allows him to keep everything in the same
melting pot, picking up only those contradictions of his model which
seem to cast him some doubt about Romanian being derived from Latin.

> This is why I see a little mystery here. On another hand, words
> like "sare", "soare" can very well derive directly from PIE and
> not from Latin like "mare"= great which is not from Latin
> "maris"= sea.

The word "directly" remains still strange in this context, as long
as PIE no longer existed at least 3000 years before one could speak
about Romanian language. Alex has obviously a problem also with that.

> Now you have strange things like Latin "aureolus" >aurum which
> gave a romanian "alior", Latin "serenus" > Rom. "senin" and so on.

Assimilation, dissimilation: these words say everything.

> The semantic changes in fact are the most important in my eyes.
> "alerga"= to run from Latin "allargare ( < largus), alinta= to
> caress from Latin *allentare (<lentus), alunga= to banish from
> Latin *allongare (< longus) and so on, examples are too much to
> quote them.

The list can be completed with similar examples of meaning changes
from all Romance languages. No point there.

> These are semantically changes which in a small number normally
> have to be accepted, but when they are in the very great number,
> they become too a bit, misterious for the short time from Latin
> time to today.

As far as Alex doesn't has a comparaison term to decide whether
the proportion of words having changed their meaning is big or not,
we are left to his subjective feeling conditioned by his lectures
that there are too many words and the time is too short.

>> So what? Vulgar Latin was extremely rich in such non-classical
>> prefixed verbs. There are cognates for many of them in other
>> Romance languages, e.g. <spinteca> correcponds to North It.
>> spindegar (same meaning).
>
> There is not so easy an "so what". I mean, if we take as shield an
> expression like "so what" we can conclude anything regarding the
> vulgar Latin.

Well, there are relevant and irrelevant issues. When someone picks
something irrelevant as main argument, the answer "so what?" is by
far the only rational one. Having made some studies helps a lot in
determining whether an issue is relevant or not.

> But these are just my toughs.

Tough enough! :-)

> In the moment when there is a set of rules to show anything else
> as Latin evolution we can talk about., Right now, there is a set
> of rules which show a Latin evolution and from my side just a big
> amount of words who laugh about these rules. At this level I can
> just tell you about these words , but not more.

Let's say "supposed big amount" and "alleged irregular words". It
describes better the situation, as most linguists do not share this
revolutionary idea.

Cheers,
Marius Iacomi