Re: Romanian Frunzã 'leaf, foliage'

From: Richard Wordingham
Message: 29075
Date: 2004-01-04

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "alex" <alxmoeller@...> wrote:
> Piotr Gasiorowski wrote:

> > There is no earthly reason to question the derivation from
>> <frons>/<frondis> 'leaf, foliage' via V.Lat. *frondia.
> >
> > Piotr
>
> why not V.Lat. *frundia ?

Occam's razor. _frund-_ is the older form, but we have no need to
assume its survival in Vulgar Latin. All we need to assume is forms
in frond-, which are attested in Classical Latin. *frondia is very
reminiscent of the regular Latin _folia_ 'leaves (*plural*)', which
gives French _feuille_, Spanish _hoja_ and Italian _foglia_, all
meaning 'leaf (*singular*)'.

For the vowel, compare Romanian _frunte_ 'forehead' from Latin
_fro:ns_, front- 'forehead', where there is no hint of /u/ in
Latin. The cognates here are French _front_, Spanish _frente_ (You
try saying *fruente!), Italian _fronte_.

Richard.