Re: IE prefix "*s"... and neglected phonology

From: george.st@...
Message: 28563
Date: 2003-12-17

Miguel Carrasquer <mcv@...> wrote:
>On Wed, 17 Dec 2003 00:21:39 +0100, Piotr Gasiorowski
><piotr.gasiorowski@...> wrote:
>
>>16-12-03 23:19, Miguel Carrasquer wrote:
>>
>>>Unless he was incompletely quoted, Rosetti fails to explain
>>>why we have <e> instead of <ie> in inel (ânel). Lat. anellu
>>>should have given *âniel, which is the pre-stage if inel.
>>>I would think attested ânel is is a mixture of regular
>>>*âniel
>>>and rhotacized ârel (the loss of /j/ after /r/ is regular).
>>
>>Is there anything wrong with *âniél > *ân^él (no
>>rhotacism because of the palatality) > *âinél (too late to
>>be rhotacised) > ânél/inél, with variable outcome of
>>diphthong reduction?
>
>There *is* a rhotacized form ârel (also Istro-Romanian arel),
>which means that /n/ could be rhotacized even before /ie/.
>There is a difference between Vulgar Latin /n^/, which gives
>Rom. /j/, and secondarily palatalized sequences such as
>>/nE/ > /nie/, /-ni/, which I think have the tendency to go
>to /jn/, except I can't think of too many examples right
>now.
>
>Miguel Carrasquer Vidal

I don't know whether <înel>/<îrel> are in use somewhere today,
but I confirm the existence of <in^el> (I mean with the palatali-
zation of the [n]) in western areas of the main (DR) dialect.

But take <inima> "heart" < Lat. <anima>. This morphem coexists
-still today- with the following: <inema>, <in^ima>, <in^ema>
and with the rhotacized <irima> & <irema>. Usually, Romanian-
Romanian dictionaries such as the "DEX" only mention <inima>
and <inema>. (The stress always falls on the 1st syllable:
['---].)

The rhotacized morphems are typical of some western DR regions
(if South of the Carpathian range too, then I expect them only
in areas of the regions Mehedintzi, Oltenia and Muntenia [along
the Carpathian souther range, seen from W to E]).

I've never heard/read of the existence of variants starting with
[I], i.e. <î>: *înima, *înema, *îrima, *îrema.

OTOH, by and large, we also oughta take into consideration the
transformations that have occurred within the Romanian language,
i.e., the Romanian language proper, after the proto-Romanian
language period.

Thus, some occurrences seen in the... standard variants
of the words (such as in DEX, modern books, newspapers and
radio-TV usage) as puzzling if one takes the rules pertaining
to Lat => Rum won't be explained without knowing what once
happened and what has happened up today in all DR subdialectal
areas, as well as dialectally (DR versus AR, MR, IR; the latter
might be seen much closer to DR though, including the
rhotacization phenomenon, which hasn't yet disappeared in
Banate, W-Transylvania, N-Oltenia and NW-Muntenia).

There is a constant temptation to take into consideration
only words of standard Romanian (which, as any standard
language, is an... artificial idiom) and, thus, the phonology
of the Romanian spoken in some counties of the province
of Muntenia, that once (recently) imposed its idiosincrasies
onto standard Romanian (e.g. including the diphtongation of
<câne> "dog", <pâne> "bread", <mâne> "tomorrow", which were
standard Romanian, without diphtongation, up to Apr 1, 1954,
in dictionaries and orthographic + orthoepic works issued
by the Romanian Academy of Sciences.

However, in a diachronic perspective of phon. occurrences,
going beyond those counties and the artificial standard DR is
a must, is something sine qua non. (Hence, any Romanian
native-speaker whose knowledge relies only on a variant of
language which is very close to the standard language
won't tell you anything on rhotacized and palatalized sounds,
because s/he has never been put in the situation to use his/her
own apical-palatal-alveolar-dental apparatus to utter those
(weird to her/him) phonems ever. Let alone the awareness of
nasals without pronouncing a full [n]: this aspect hasn't been
ever taught in Romanian conventional schools. Hence, to some
Romanian participants here will never occur that words such as
<stânca, pântec> can also be pronounced within the frame of
*received pronunciation* accepted as high standard even without
a full [n]: the nasal phonem I'm alluding to fully suffices.
A Romanian stenography system even uses this occurrence in
order to create specific abbreviations for the sake of speed.)

Last but not least, I'd pay some more attention to the
[i]<->[I] relationship in Romanian phonology. Ad-hoc examples:
<scânteie> <-> <schinteie> "spark" < Lat. scintilla. Both variants
coexist, whereas <schinteie> [skin-'te-je] is old-fashioned now;
it's chiefly extant as as a... surname: Schinteie. / Then,
<sprânceana> <-> <sprinceana> "brow": in some regions of Romania,
local people prefer the pronunciation [sprin-]; the same regional
preference in <cuvânteaza> <-> <cuvinteaza>: some people will
forever prefer [ku-vin-], instead of the standard [ku-vIn].

So, if you keep asking me: "why [i] instead of [I] and why
vice-versa?", I only can retort: "Go figure!" :-) (it often
has something to do with... fads and sub/dialectal sound laws)

George

PS: The Romanian prefix <s-> can be pronounced [z], esp. when
followed by voiced consonants, and [s]. As for writing it:
until Apr 1, 1954, it was recommended to always write it <s->.
After that date, the spelling is <z-> when voiced, and <s->.
This is why you'll encounter both spellings: <zburator>,
<zmuls>, <zmeu> and <sburator>, <smuls>, <smeu> (the latter
group esp. in older printouts). (Similar is the story of the
prefix <des->, today: <des-> and <dez->.)