--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Miguel Carrasquer wrote:
> On Mon, 21 Jul 2003 12:45:52 +0000, m_iacomi <m_iacomi@...> wrote:
>
>> That is: independent chopping out of the same useless part [...]
>> useless since "conso:bri:nus" was meaning also `first (male)
>> cousin` in Latin)
>
> Coromines has some interesting details on the Latin use:
>
> "En llatí clàssic CONSOBRI:NUS es digué primerament, i restà
> clàssic, designant només els fills de germanes (< cons-sosr-inus,
> derivat de sosor, antecedent de soror); després fou també clàssic
> aplicat a tots els cosins carnals en primer grau, i a la fi també
> als d'altres graus; d'ací es va extraure més tard sobrinus.
There is little debate on that, but I think one should emphasize
that basical meaning was still felt to be `first cousin` (according
to Gaius' Institutiones: "qui ex duobus fratribus progenerati sunt,
quos plerique etiam consobrinos uocant"; see also "id est qui quaeue
ex duabus sororibus nascuntur, quasi consorini").
> Això va obligar llavors a usar el compost CONSOBRINUS PRIMUS 'cosí
> primer', per a anomenar els cosins propis de primer grau. (...)
> segons ens diuen Festus, Caius i els altres juristes, s'abusava
> molt del simple CONSOBRINUS aplicant-lo sense precisions als
> cosins segons i a d'altres parents col.laterals més allunyats que
> el cosí
In colloquial use, that happens everywhere (including Romanian;
incidentally, that explains also Daco-Romanian word for `cousin`).
That's merely something about semantism.
The question is if the phonetical evolution from "consobrinus" to
"cosinu" has to be linked with "primu(s)" or is independent. While
Coromines seems to argue for the necessity of the compound not only
in Catalan (the argument being that the mentioned compound existed
and had some exitus in Southern Italian I am not aware of -- but
its' undoubted existence is not a proof for necessity of deriving
_all_ modern Western Romance words from that compound), there are
also other opinions sustained by factual arguments. For instance,
another Italian etymological dict. (Battisti/Alesio 1975) makes the
derivation of "cugino" from "co:(n)sobri:nus [...] attraverso la
forma popolare abbrev. co:si:nus, che doveva essre largam. diffusa,
cfr. <cusinus> (a. 1003, a Farfa), cosinus (aa. 1198, 1279, a
Bologna)". The same dictionary says also that "consobrino" (another
Italian word, archaic, regional and lit.) is "conservato dei nostri
dial. merid. centr. e sett. orient."; it is to note they refer to
Southern dialects too.
From the above, knowing also that ...
>> [...] in Sicilian is not "conzuprimu" but "cuçinu".
... I don't find so much support for Coromines' alleged general
Western Romance etymology through the compound. Maybe he has also
some other arguments than those presented.
>> I think that Coromines' vehemence is probably the result of some
>> previous animated discussions with disagreeing fellow linguists.
>
> And they didn't even have mailing lists in those days...
It happened mostly in the libraries. :)
Regards,
Marius Iacomi