>GK: Indeed. I understand Miguel's clarification
> entirely. I wonder why you felt the need to add the
> above Peter? What does it add to Miguel's
> explanation?
Look at the whole discussion below, George. You'll see that Miguel meant to
refer to "proto-Romance", but used the looser term "vulgar Latin", as is
often done. You then seemed to pounce on that, and say, "so vulgar Latin
and proto-Romance are identical?"
I butted in at that point to say it was obvious what Miguel meant, and
you shouldn't misinterpret him.
Strictly speaking, Vulgar Latin is the language attested in Petronius,
inscriptional mistakes, graffitti, isolated quotations etc. It reflects a
popular style of speech, but is still deeply influenced by the written
Classical language. It is not identical to what must be reconstructed as
the precursor of the Romance languages. The written Vulgar Latin stands
therefore between proto-Romance and Classical Latin. Examples of the
difference between VL and PR:
VL sapere (= classical, short e) PR requires *sapêre, long e
VL plûvia but PR *plovia
VL gravem but PR *grevem (? analogy ~ levem)
VL nuptias but PR *noptias beside nuptias
Despite that, the term "vulgar Latin" is often used loosely to mean any
non-Classical Latin.
Peter (previous discussion follows)
>(Miguel)The rules for Romanian
> are I'd say an
> order of magnitude less complex than the rules we
> need to derive
> Modern French from Vulgar Latin.
******GK: The point may have been made before, but I
gather that what this implies is that Proto-Romance
and Vulgar Latin are one and the same?
> >(Miguel) Yes. Vulgar Latin and Proto-Romance are
> virtually the same.
>
> [Peter] "The phrase "vulgar Latin" is often used loosely, to
> mean "proto-Romance".
> But don't confuse that use with its more precise use,
> where it must be
> distinguished from proto-Romance. It is quite clear
> what Miguel meant here."
>
> ******GK: Indeed. I understand Miguel's clarification
> entirely. I wonder why you felt the need to add the
> above Peter? What does it add to Miguel's
> explanation?******