Re: Weeping (was: Latin pinso etc.)

From: tolgs001
Message: 29668
Date: 2004-01-16

>I do not see any need to derive Romanian _plâns_ from Latin
>*planxus (which is plausible, given the perfect _planxi:_).
>As Romanian still has the verb _plânge_ 'weep', the past
>participle has clearly been refashioned as _plâns_. I don't
>know whether Latin _planctus_ would ultimately have given
>*plâmpt or *plânt in Romanian. A form like *plâmpt would
>invite replacement by _plâns_.

It would've collided with împlânt-a/re < Lat. implantare. :-)

A comparable one: frango, fract- > frânge, frânt "break,
broken, rip, ripped ". Further ones of this cathegory:

unge, uns "oil, smear", but unt "butter", unturã "grease".
smulge/zmulge, has a double participle: smuls and smult
(which is today only regionally known: 1: dissheveled,
2: smultura: the wool after shearing a sheep; feathers
yanked from some birds, e.g. geese) ("to yank"). [Spelling
note for those who might be interested in Romanian:
some scribblers prefer the spelling zmulge, zmuls,
zmult/ura.][In olympic weightlifting, smuls "jerk," I
suppose.];

mulge, muls < mulgere (there's no 2nd participle *mult).
împinge, împins; împunge, împuns; înfige, but...
înfipt (!) (the latter two with the basic semantics "to
drive s.th. sharp, pointed into": needle, pin, knife,
dagger, sword, spear etc.); învinge, învins (but the
deverbal noun: învingãtor, not *învinsãtor; the same
pattern: împingãtor, împungãtor, mulgãtor, not
*...(n)sãtor).
Frige, fript (so that French pommes frites could be well
translated as Rum. poame fripte; however, no Romanian says
so, but instead cartofi prajitzi, where in the participle
is a verb of Slavic origin; cartofi friptzi would be okay,
but rather in provincial areas than in the capital).

There is a more comprising tendency in Romanian to have
that Latin endings -ct- and -xi- rendered with the participle
suffix -s. See supra as well as these e.g. infra:

tras along with its many reflexes versus tract+or,
(con-, re-)trac+tat (today tratat "treaty + treatise") as
well as other neologisms which however replaced the -ct-
with the inherited -s, e.g. retras (1: retreaded,
withdrawn; 2: drawn again + retrasat: re-drawn in the
sense: of a line, with a writing tool); contras (in
linguistics: <forma contrasa> "a contracted word variant").
Et al. examples, incl. zis versus dict- (in neologisms such
as dictzionar, dictziune, edict, dicta/re/-at/ura,
interdictzie -> but interzis "forbidden").

> Richard.

George