Re: [tied] Romance Relatives of Latin _gingi:va_

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "m_iacomi" <m_iacomi@...> wrote:

> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Richard Wordingham" wrote:
>
> > --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "m_iacomi" <m_iacomi@...> wrote:
>
> >> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "richardwordingham" wrote:
> >
> >>> I presume _gingie_ is stressed on the first syllable.
> >
> >> What made you think that?!
> >
> > The vowel of the first syllable. If we counterfactually ignore

the

> > fall of /v/, Latin _gingí:va_ should give Romanian _*gengívä_.
>
> If first /i/ was short, maybe;

Italian _gengi:va_ and Western Romance *ginci:va (> French _gencive_,
Spanich _encía_) argue for the first /i/ being short.

> ...don't forget the power of
> assimilation though.

I had had the wrong sort of assimilation in mind - I had been
wondering about assimilation of Romanian to Latin, but I suppose
unstressed "ge" before a nasal assimilating to the stressed "gi" is
quite reasonable. The example of English _orange_ ["QrIn(d)Z] (SAMPA
ASCIIfication) had already come to mind.

> > Latin _*gíngi:va_ (not a possible stress until stress became
> > lexical) would have given Romanian _*gíngivä_.
>
> Latin stress doesn't migrate so easily on the way to Romanian.
> Only some particular classes of words make it change. OTOH, with
> your same arguments, why didn't you reconstructed from the second
> a "Romanian" *gíngevä?! :-)

I had grave doubts about *gíngevä > _gíngie_. (Smiley ignored.)

Richard.