--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "alex" wrote:
>>> Fact is too, the change of Latin /de/ to "du" in Rom. and "do" in
>>> Italian _is not possible_, it doesnt matter with how much honey
>>> you want to bake it.
>>
>> Rohlfs has a different opinion, as you noticed from Miguel's
>> message. Methinks he, Romanian and Italian linguists are more
>> likely to be right.
>
> If someone is right one has to show why he is right.
That's equally valid for your own allegations. You state something as
established "fact" while it's obvious it is not a fact but only your
very
personal opinion on the matter. This shows out you don't know what a
fact
really is and you're unable to distinguish between facts and own
thoughts,
which is a basical method error biasing all your allegations.
Out of that, you are supposed to show why "it is not possible".
Actually
this is a false argument since linguistical data strongly support _it
did_
happen in both languages.
Anyway, Miguel hinted you with Rohlfs' material and I did the same
with
Romanian dialectal forms (may one quote also the good ol' source of
wisdom
Dante Alighieri writing "dipoi", one of the forms given by Rohlfs).
These
intermediates allow us to trace back the word up to original "de post"
in
both languages.
The essential factor, as stated, is the stress. While in French
"depuis"
or Iberic forms (be it O.Catalan "despuix" or Spanish "después"), "de"
is
unstressed, in Romanian and Italian the word is paroxytone. The
necessity
to give some weight on the stressed vowel (since the word is often
used
in emphatical discussions when imposing one point of view about the
timing
of some action, weight is required) combined with phonetical
environment
and also a possible assimilation (for Italian) were both elements
producing
instability of stressed front vowel in the first syllable. Both in
Italian
and Romanian, primary vowel from the first syllable was a front vowel,
as
proven by tons of attested Italian forms and Aromanian; its' shift to
a
back vowel occured at some later date but it is still reasonable to
assume
the instability was already Common Romanian (since Megleno-Romanian,
usually
linked with AR, has also an /u/).
For Italian "dopo", Devoto says: "Lat. <de post> con accento unico
sull'elemento <de>, il tutto incr. con it. <dove>, anche sotto l
'influenza
della cons. labiale -p- che preferisce esser preceduta da -o- anziché
da
-i-; cfr. DOMANDARE, DOVENTARE, DOVIZIA"; one could add also "donde" <
Lat. "de unde", "dovere" < "debere", or eventually "dove" < "de ubi".
For Romanian, usual correspondent of Italian /o/ is /u/; except the
not so
likely (even in Italian) "incrocio" with <dove>, the phenomenon was
the same.
> I assume this is a "Noterklärung" and nothing more.
Well, to clarify all, one has to say that derivation of Common
Romanian
"*depã/dipã" is straightforward; the further evolution towards modern
DR
form is rather uncommon but not surprising at all. At any rate, the
word
"impossible" does not apply.
Marius Iacomi