>Well, this vindicates M. Iacomi's point. The _spelling_ of
>tri is utterly irrelevant. What matters is the _pronunciation_.
>
>Enough about this.
[The last one in this thread. :-)] Only for those who
might be interested in such peculiarities of the
Romanian language:
The relationship "spelling--pronunciation" is there and is
important, however.
There is a rudiment of rendering in the current
spelling (I already mentioned this): the doubling of the
letter "i".
Hence, <trii> (meaning "three") __must__ be written
with a double-i, whereas the prefix <tri-> only with one.
There ain't no *professional* printout (be it newspaper,
book, disc or CD label) with this regional variant with
a single "i"! Wherever you find the word written with a
single "i," you'll automatically be justified to conclude
the scribbler has grammar problems (or is even a dyslexic
person). This, even if that person is entitled to
prof.dr.dr.dr.& dr. honoris causa.
Two "i"s in writing (representing this [ij]) represent
a big ortographic problem for most of Romanian native
speakers. Indeed, not only because this collectivity
of people lack the appropriate knowledge of the rules,
but also because of one's own pronunciation flaws or those
of one's environment (subdialect or (rather) sociolect!).
Once again: this phenomenon evolved after 1902, when the
graphical rendering of the [ij] occurrence was given up
altogether and forever (earlier than that, one had written:
"i" plus a second "i" with a tiny half circle instead of the
dot).
In spite of this simplification of the graphical rendition
(whith its consequences), you'll never find Romanian texts
published by professionals in which to find words such as
*tri (when it is the synonym of <trei> "three"), *pirostri,
*mini$tri+a$tri+pede$tri (when articled!!!) etc. Instead,
you'll constantly find: pirostrii, mini$tri+a$tri+pede$tri
(all these four being plural forms, without the definite
article!).
And the last 3 words are very good examples for
distinguishing between the phonetic occurrences: their
final [i] is a genuine, full, but short [i], in the
plural without article...
... whereas, when the "i"definite article is added to
them, then the pronunciation... changes! It'll cease
to be a mere [i], it'll become an [ij]. (Don't bother:
in Romanian linguistic books, this is described accordingly.)
This is the reason why we *must* write <ministrii>!
As in this sentence: "Presedintele s'a intalnit
cu ministrii." / "Presedintele s'a intalnit cu
ministri" is either wrong or needs the including of
a word, such as "ni$te," "unii," "<a numeral>", namely
included between "cu" and "ministri." Otherwise it'd be
erroneous.
(<no$tri>, <vo$tri> can be used as sort of a... litmus
test (-: if the tested person writes *no$trii and *vo$trii,
then you'll be sure that person has no idea whatsoever
of the rules & of the pronunciation differences; moreover,
that person will be tempted to double the "i" in verbs of
the fourth conjugation, e.g. <*a venii, iubii, fii, lovii,>
which is outrageous, ludicrous and disheartening at the
same time.
(This thingamagig is as stubborn as, say, the spelling
*seperate in English. :-))
>Miguel
George
PS: I grew up in a subdialectal environment where [trej]
is sort of an... imported pronunciation. The specific
pronunciation for my region is [trij]. Whoever is interested
in this phonetic thing, can verify this as a tourist visiting
those areas (esp. Banate, Transylvania and Northern Moldavia:
the incidence of [trij] is the weakest on a NW->SE axis
when travelling from W to E).