Re: Proto-Romance *ve:ci:nus 'neighbour'

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Richard Wordingham" wrote:

>>> Spanish _vecino_ and French _voisin_ point to *ve:ci:nus (or
>>> *vici:nus).
>>
>> Why?! We deal with unstressed vocalism. Cf. Varvaro - "Linguistica
>> Romanza", for instance: "nel sistema 'romanzo comune' [Latin] i
>> [short] e: e [short] hanno dato /e/ [...] nel sistema balcanico
>> la serie anteriore è la stessa". So "vici:num" (short unstressed
>> /i/ only) could explain Spanish <vecino>; OTOH, French <voisin>
>> and OF <veisin> are usually explained through VL "*veci:nus".
>
>>> Although Italian _vicino_ appears to derive from _vi:ci:nus_,
>>
>> If you start up with "vi:ci:nus" (which is CL), you'll end up
>> with Romanian "*vicin" which could arguably dissimilate into
>> modern "vecin" (Rohlfs admits it too for Italian). Conversely,
>> you may try "vici:nus" or "*veci:nus" (as for French); unstressed
>> Latin /e/ does not go always in /&/ even in the first syllable:
>> "venenum" > "venin", "venire" > "veni", "berbecem" (CL "vervex") >
>> "berbec(e)", etc.
>
> You seem to be making the point that all the forms could derive from
> any of *veci:nus, *ve:cinus and *vici:nus.

Almost right. My point is that Romance words do not point definitely
to *ve:ci:nus (or *vici:nus) as you claimed, but "*veci:nus" could be
also a valid option.

> You argue that Romanian _vecin_ might derive from Latin
> _vi:ci:nus_;

Speaking only about Romanian, yes, through the aforementioned
dissimilation. But it's not my favorite pick. :-)

> why do you boldly assert that Italian _vicino_ does not (as
> opposed to need not) derive from _vi:ci:nus?

Actually Garzanti mentions as etymon only "vici:nus", with no
mark for long or short. I wanted to say that variants /e/ (short)
/e:/ or /i/ (short) are not to be apriorically excluded for
construction of literary Italian "vicino" and I showed why.
If you think it's necessary, I'll have a look in Devoto.

> Information from other dialects?

Both forms (with /e/ and /i/) appear in Italian dialects. Tuscan
/i/ has only the privilege to have made it as literary standard.

> The cleanest explanation is to derive all forms from a single proto-
> form. I can explain *ve:ci:nus (derivative from attested by-form
> _ve:cus_ of _vi:cus_). *vici:nus would be a dissimilatory
> shortening.

As stated, CL form is "vi:ci:nus", regular derivative of "vi:cus".
A VL corresponding form "*ve:ci:nus" (though not attested) seems
very plausible (as suggested by Romances and attested "ve:cus" for
CL "vi:cus", according to your observation). It could be either a
derivative of "ve:cus" or a vernacular alteration of "vi:ci:nus";
I would adopt rather the second version.
From this "*ve:cinus" one can conveniently derive all Romance
forms, including Romanian and Italian. But one can consider also
another potential altered form "*vici:nus" which would have done
it the same.

Regards,
Marius Iacomi