Re: [tied] Re: Romanian Frunzã 'leaf, foliage'

Richard Wordingham wrote:

> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "alex" <alxmoeller@...> wrote:
>> Piotr Gasiorowski wrote:
>
>>> There is no earthly reason to question the derivation from
>>> <frons>/<frondis> 'leaf, foliage' via V.Lat. *frondia.
>>>
>>> Piotr
>>
>> why not V.Lat. *frundia ?
>
> Occam's razor. _frund-_ is the older form, but we have no need to
> assume its survival in Vulgar Latin. All we need to assume is forms
> in frond-, which are attested in Classical Latin. *frondia is very
> reminiscent of the regular Latin _folia_ 'leaves (*plural*)', which
> gives French _feuille_, Spanish _hoja_ and Italian _foglia_, all
> meaning 'leaf (*singular*)'.

it seems you forgot Rom. "foaie" here.

> For the vowel, compare Romanian _frunte_ 'forehead' from Latin
> _fro:ns_, front- 'forehead', where there is no hint of /u/ in
> Latin. The cognates here are French _front_, Spanish _frente_ (You
> try saying *fruente!), Italian _fronte_.
>
> Richard.

I love the cyclic changes. We have an older /u/ which became /o/ which
became /u/ but
the change /-onC/> /unC/ is a regular one and there is nothing to
comment about.

Alex