Re: [tied] Latin verus

From: Miguel Carrasquer
Message: 24699
Date: 2003-07-19

On Sat, 19 Jul 2003 15:38:27 +0000, m_iacomi <m_iacomi@...> wrote:

> Italian linguists usually make it derive from OF "cosin" (pronounced
>with /u/, not /o/; written also "cusin"). The ultimate source is still
>Latin "consobrinus" through an intermediate "*co(n)sinus" which can
>be seen also as belonging to childish language. According to Rohlfs:
>"it's important that in all French parallel forms, to Italian voiced
><gi> /z^/ is's corresponding in French a voiced /s/."

My source was Coromines (Dicc. etim. i compl. de la ll. catalana), where he
says:

"Igual forma ha quedat en les llengües i dialectes de França -- oc. ant.
cosi(n), fr. i oc.mod. cousin -- i de la major part d'Itàlia, on l'it.
literari cugino és constant des del S. XIII (Tristano, de la Riccardina),
és la forma general i autòctona en els dialectes de Toscana i del Nord, i
presenta l'evolució fonètica normal en la llengua (TopHesp. II, 59)"
[...]
"En definitiva, tot això venia a parar al resultat de tipus cosinprimu, del
qual acabà eliminant-se el -primu quan s'alternà variant-lo en
cosin-segondo i anàlegs. Aquesta és l'única explicació sostenible
d'aquesta abreviació, i cal abandonar l'éxplicació arbitrària com un
escurçament capritxós o infantil, directe, de CONSOBRINUS en CO(N)SINUS,
que es donava abans, a descartar per les raons que vaig detallar en la meva
obra (IV, 1066b8-30).

In case the meaning is not altogether clear:

"The same form [as Cat. cosí] has remained in the languages and dialects of
France --old Occ. cosi(n), Fr. and Mod.Occ. cousin -- and of the larger
part of Italy, where literary Italian cugino is constant from the XIII c.
onwards (Tristano, de la Riccardina), [it]'s the general and native form in
the dialects of Tuscany and the North, and shows the normal phonetical
evolution in the language.

In conclusion, all that [the various S.Italian forms I gave earlier] came
to result in the type cosinprimu, from which in the end the -primu was
eliminated, when it stood in alternation with cosin-segondo and analogous
forms. This is the only tenable explanation of this abbreviation, and one
should abandon arbitrary explanations such as a whimsical or infantile
shortening directly of CONSOBRINUS to CO(N)SINUS, which was given in the
past, to be discarded for the reasons that I detailed in my work [Dicc.
crítico etimológico de la lengua castellana, IV, 1066b8-30].

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