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

From: aquila_grande
Message: 38231
Date: 2005-06-01

As far as I remember to have read, the i-endings of Italian verbs has
the following history.

In the 4.th declention the latin endings -o:, i:s, it bacame -o, is, et
(long i bacame short i, and short i became e)

Then the ending consonants s and t and m were lost inall verbal forms.
This caused the 2.sg and 3.sg to be identical inn all forms of the
declentions, exept the present of the 4.th declention that after this
had the endings -o, -i, -e.

Then the 2.sg ending of the 4.th decletion was analogically
transformed to all 2.sg forms. Thus the defect caused by the consonant
loss was repaired.

This repair process is not complete in all Italian dialects, but is so
in the Toscan dialect that forms the base for the written language.