Re: [tied] schwa [Re: Androphobia]

On Fri, 30 May 2003 17:25:12 +0200, alex <alxmoeller@...>
wrote:

>Where I have trouble is to see an /i/ and this /i/ becoming /â/.
>The word "intra" has the same form as "între" being bisilabic. This is
>the actualy status of the words. If we search about their origins we
>will see as follow:
>intra= from Latin 'intrare'
>între= from Latin 'inter'
>
>Assuming the chronologicaly evolution, the "-re" from the Latin verbn
>was lost somehow and we have intrare > intra
>for the "inter" is nothing to be lost, eventualy since this is ending in
>a conosonants it should have lost the "r". But it did not so we have in
>a certain stage the words "intra" and "inter".
>We accept the metathesis here of "inter" > "intre".
>Now the two words we have are "intra" and "intre".
>Why the "in" from "intre" become "ân" in this case (I write with /â/ for
>a better visualisation of the sounds) and the another one, "intra"
>remains an "in" when the phonological medium is the same?

The phonological environment is far from the same. Intrare is a verb,
with the accent switching between root and suffix (íntro:, intráre ->
Ita. éntro entráre, Rom. íntru, intrá(re)).

Inter (and intra) are prepositions, which are never accented. Eastern
Romance (Italian and Romanian) share the tendency to delete the
initial vowel in such prepositions. That's why we have Italian
entrare, entro vs. tra (*intra > *ntra > tra). Cf. also stra- (extra

> 'stra), fra (infra > 'nfra > fra), Southern Italian 'n- < in,

literary Italian nel, nello, nella ('n illu, 'n illa). We have the
same in Romanian: inter > 'ntre, in > 'n, etc.

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