From: Miguel Carrasquer
Message: 28568
Date: 2003-12-17
On Wed, 17 Dec 2003 13:50:11 +0000, george.st@... wrote:
Your plea for considering the value of the dialects has been duly noted.
>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].
This is also easily explained if we look at the dialects. The transition
of /ín/ to /în/ is recent and Daco-Romanian only (and hasn't spread to all
dialects, from what you tell me). Bourciez says this:
"C'est au contraire, lorsque les deux groupes de population [South and
North, or Cis-Danubian and Trans-Danubian] furent séparés, que l'/i/
secondaire issu de /é./ + /n/ simple passa a /î/, mais seulement au Nord,
derrière labiale, derrière /s/, ou cons. + /r/: roum. vînã = ve:na, sîn =
sinum, frîn = fre:num (mr. vinã, sin). Au Nord seul aussi appartient le
passage à /î/ (derrière labiale) de l'/i/ provenant de /É/ + /n/ + cons.,
mais à la condition que la voyelle de la syllabe finale fût une voyelle
vélaire: roum. vînt = ventum (mr. vimtu), cuvînt = conventum (mais pl.
cuvinte)."
=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
mcv@...