Re: [tied] a question about Vocative in Rom.

From: Miguel Carrasquer
Message: 33685
Date: 2004-08-02

On Sun, 01 Aug 2004 15:55:44 +0200, alex
<alxmoeller@...> wrote:

>Vocative for masculine sg. in Rom. is "-e" , for feminine sg. "ã" or "o".
>Until here nothing new, I remember we discussed these once as I questioned
>the vocative in "o" which was supposed to be of Slavic origin. Why at that
>time one did not mention the plural form, I have no idea. But here is this;
>the vocative for plural masculine or feminine is absolutly strange since it
>is "-lor".
>
>Masc. pl: fraTi, vocative -> fraTilor !
>Fem . pl: surori,vocative -> surorilor !
>
>Here it doesnt matter from which a language a word comes, it doesnt't matter
>how old or how recent an word is. The vocative is made up in pl. with this
>"-lor". But "-lor" is in fact the genitive desinence for pl. as well.
>
>un bãiat (a boy); doi baieTi (two boys), bãieTilor (of the boys)
>o fatã (a girl); douã fete (two girls), fetelor (of the girls)
>
>The difference between vocative and genitive in this situation can be
>understood just from the context of the sentence. Just reading/hearing the
>whole sentence one see if there is vocative or genitive.
>It is worth to mention that the genitive plural has too no alternance as in
>Sg. There is too exceptionless made up with "-lor" for all the words,
>regardless if they are masc., fem. , or neutra.
>
>Since it is hard to believe that the genitive can have the same form with
>vocative ab originis, apparently one of two forms is a form which just
>coincidentaly got the aspect of the another. Since for genitive plural ,
>there is no beter explanation as Latin "illorum" given, I ask myself how is
>to explain this vocative plural "-lor".

Romanian -lor is historically a masculine genitive (from
Latin illorum), but it's a general oblique in modern
Romanian (it also expresses the dative, and serves for all
genders, as you say). Further extension to vocative
function is not surprising.

=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
mcv@...