Richard Wordingham wrote:
> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "alex" <alxmoeller@...> wrote:
>> Richard Wordingham wrote:
>>
>>>> Romanian words which request a protoform of the Latin word.
>>>> (Details if requested but I am afraid for instance Miguel is aware
>>>> of such situations)
>>>> Now to "frunzã". "Frunzã" is a feminine noun and it can derive from
>>>> *frunsa, *fronso/*frunsa
>>>
>>> What other examples do you offer for such a development?
>>
>>> Richard.
>>
>>
>> How should I have to understand your question? Are you specialy
>> interested in the "n" there or in the ending "-zã"?
>
> Both bother me. I don't believe in a Proto-Romance -nsa and I don't
> believe -ns- > -nz- in the development of Romanian.
>
> Richard.
If you already put here Proto-Romance you are right to say there is
no -ns > -nz. The sonorisation of "s" appears to be a phenomenon which
happened before the first Latin loans.
My problem is not that of "nso"> "nzã" since herefore are enough lexical
evidence. My problem is the "u" there which is attested just in OldLatin
and it appears to have no reflex in other IE language and the "u" in
Rom. word can be too the result of /-onC/ > /unC/; beside of this it
appears to be the only one word which ends in "-unzã" since the others
ends "-ânzã)
Lexical data wich presents the ending /-nz(ã)/:
brânzã ( cheese, unk. etym), rânzã (stomach of animals, see Alb.
rrëndes), pânzã (tissue, unkn. etym)
mânz (foal, see Alb. mës), osânzã(lard, cf DEX < Lat. "absungia")
The only sure attestation for -nz final cluster is in the Thracian name
"Menzana" which was a deity of the horses, thus this change can be
supposed as sure as being from an older -ns.
If this change is not accepted as such, there remains imo just two
posibilities:
-the "s" there is from an velar thus a satem reflex from an
older -ng^/-ngW or -nk^/-nkW
-the change there is from an -ndV where V= i, e, y. The last assumtion
imply that the -dV > zã long time before Roman times and implies that at
least the changes which we consider to have happen in PBR are false on
the timeline, they having happened in fact long time before. For this
will speaks and the reduction of Latin cluster /ct/>/t in words which
are sure of Latin origin and not /ct/> /pt/ as in some assumed Latin
words which have a likely phological form in other IE languages.
Any other posibility in your eyes?
Alex