[tied] Re:

From: m_iacomi
Message: 27660
Date: 2003-11-26

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "alex" wrote:

> m_iacomi wrote:
>
>>>> For the ending, the evolution is perfectly similar to
>>>> "calcaneu(s)" > *cãlcãn'u > cãlcâi.
>>>
>>> You try to explain a irregularity trough an another irregularity
>>> making out a possiblitiy :-))
>>
>> There is no irregularity. The word "cãlcân'" is alive in Banat
>> subdialect. Regular evolution of "n'" (phonetically written on
>> cybalist [n^]) is towards a iot in most DR speaking area.
>
> The irregularity is not there but here: "neus" > "i".

Over the centuries, final post-tonic /neu/ reduces to /y/ in
Daco-Romanian, written in Romanian current spelling as "i". The
Common Romanian intermediate phase [n^u] is still alive in some
Western DR subdialects and in Aromanian (thus one could very well
forget about the * in "cãlcãn'u" since it really is the actual
form in Aromanian).

> I suspect you try to get the "i"

It is _not_ an "i" (vowel [i]) but a yod (palatal approximant [y]).
It is written down (in Romanian current spelling) with the graphical
sign <i>, the very same used for the vowel, but it is something else.

> from "n'"

It is no need "to try to get" anything. The intermediate phase does
exist in spoken dialects, it is even attested in an ancient script
as "Psaltirea Scheiana" ("cãlcãniiu"), it would be far too much to
have the faintest shadow of a doubt on [n'(y)] > [y].

> but it won't stil explain the lost of "eus".

Of course it does. In fact, present DR [y] is directly due to the
frontal non-vocalic "e" in diphthong "eu" which was treated as yod
and palatalized (up to dissapearance in DR) the preceeding /n/.

> tTe second probability (so far I remember from the habbits of
> romanists) is to assume that the calcaneus > cãlcân'eu

Your knowledge is far from being deep since you wrote down a
palatalization without correlated yodization.
Out of that, you should have put some * for your reconstructed
forms as...

> [...] cãlcâieu >

... which are neither attested nor likely intermediates since
Romanian ancient texts show no trace of /e/ but the /n^/, as well
as in Aromanian.

> [...] > cãlcâie;

This is plain nonsense. From "calcaneu(m)" the clear path leads
to Common Romanian form, with no /e/.

> The form "cãlcâie" has been "felt" as a plural form,

It is nothing else but the plural form and _not_ the result of
normal evolution from Latin form. Since it _is_ a plural, it has
all the reasons to be felt as...

> In this way the phonetical troubles should be avoided.

There is no phonetical trouble. Compare also "capitaneu(m)" >
DR "cãpãtâi", ["ante" >] "*antaneum" > AR "ntân'u", DR "întâi",
"întân'u", etc.

> Why should have been lost final "eu"?

It was no longer a final "eu" but a final /u/ following a
palatalized consonant /n^/ which was usually muted in modern DR,
this being a very well-known feature of the main dialect.

> (mereu is an example of keeping the final "eu".

... coming from a Hungarian word (that is: having get into the
language _after_ Common Romanian split, hence at a moment in
which palatalization given by yod was no longer active) and in
different phonetical conditions (if you "palatalize" /r/ you
will get... ?).

> BTW "mereu", I compare it with Germanic mehr, immer and not
> as DEX does with Hungarian "merö" which means "fix, rigide").

It would have been nice to give the meaning of "mereu": `(for)
ever`, `in aeternam`. Something lasting for ever does not change
thus it is "fixed", "rigid", "unbending" as Hungarian word (BTW,
nowdays it's "merev") implies. Mehr licht?!

Marius Iacomi