> PIOTR ALSO WROTE:
> <<Classical Latin is not the direct ancestor of Romance, so by comparing
it
> with Proto-Romance we don't actually test the reconstruction.>>
>
> Piotr, do you mean Latin is not the 'immediate' ancestor of Romance? In
all
> the descriptions I've seen of the development of Romance, it seems as if
the
> analysis seems to be saying Classical Latin > Vulgar Latin > Romance. How
> would the nominative > accusative shift, for example, make any sense if
> Classical Latin were not being treated as ancestral?
Good heavens, a chance to reply before the redoubtable Piotr! So here's my
tuppence before he tells you the real truth:
Classical Latin is not the direct ancestor, any more than Vedic is the
direct ancestor of Sanskrit, or Sanskrit of the Prakrits. In both cases the
Classical language is parallel to the origin of the next language, and more
or less close to it. We know that Classical Latin is to some extent an
artificial language, or at least a learned written language, while what we
might call Proto-Romance was the way actual people actually spoke. There
are traces of a spoken Latin around, but we can see it go underground about
180 BC, and not properly re-emerge until it has changed way beyond what we
could call Latin. This we call Vulgar Latin, but even Vulgar Latin is not
Proto-Romance proper. It stands somewhere between Proto-Romance and
Classical Latin. The issues are not only vocabulary (e.g. equus ~
caballus) or syntax (dico eum esse ~ ego dico quod ille est) but also
pronunciation and case usage. And I think we have to reconstruct (a) some
variation even within Proto-Romance and (b) variation in the timing of the
development of the Romance languages - so that some show fewer innovations,
and others rather more. Italian, surprising, seems the most innovative.
So the real relationship between Latin and Romance is complex. It is much
simpler, when we are speaking at a gross level, to say a sort of 3/4 true
generalisation, that Latin > Vulgar Latin > Romance.
Peter