Re: East Romance -i v. West Romance -s (was: Rom aia - Alb ajo < PA

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Richard Wordingham"
<richard.wordingham@...> wrote:

> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "tgpedersen" <tgpedersen@...>

wrote:

>
> > It's interesting (at least to me) that western Romance picked

the

> > consonant ending -s of acc. pl. to be the caseless pl., while
> > eastern Romance picked the vowel endings -i, -ae. Once that

ending

> > was shibbolethised, is it possible -i spread to other abodes of -

s,

> > ie 2nd sg., in eastern Romance?
>
> Your suggestion needs some dates. Remember that Old French still
> distinguised nominatve and accusative, especially in the 2nd
> declension - see e.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_French - or
> look it up in the well-stocked library you frequent. I think the
> abandonment of the case distinction in nouns is too late for your
> theory to work.
>

Yes, but remember the 'excesses' of carrying over -s > -i to 2nd sg.
happened in East Romance, not West. The French kept the inherited
2nd sg. -s, since they had no particular reason to shift. I will
therefore, with your permission, disregard the timeline of French in
that question. Also, taking into account Hans Kuhn's argument that
early written sources tend to be of a nature that excludes the lower
strata, sociologically and linguistically, the final push towards
giving up case may have been under way in French much earlier than
we can document it.


Torsten