Re: [tied] Romanian Development of /st/ (was: Against ... 'Albanian

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "alex" <alxmoeller@...> wrote:

> Actually your phonetic rules will give you from Latin "passionem"

the Rom.

> "pãSune" and you will agree this is simply joke, but not the true.

It is not unusual for words to become homophones. Modern
_pasiune_ 'passion' is clearly a loan.

> The working out of "crãciun" from "creationem" looks very fuss

regarding the

> vocalism. It is not known in Rom. that /ea/ or /ja/ develop to a;

what do

> your rules do with "e" or "j" here? Why does it get lost?Just for

reaching

> an /a/ for opbtaining the requested & ? I don't see another

explanation.

Dealt with separately.

> The second thing is what did happened with the final "e"?

George offered an explanation at
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/message/28833 .

> Why is this gone too?
> These are phonetical questions which are secundary to the dream of
> "creationem" giving "crãciun". In fact, this should be excluded

from

> begining from a such analysis since for "creationem" the Rom.

people have

> their own word. And this is "facerea".

That is a very weak argument against the word being preserved with a
specialised meaning.

> > The development of *cristi:nus is <christinus> = /kris"ti:nus/
> >> /krestinu/ > /kreStin/ = <cre$tin>. No contradiction!

> About "crestin"; this is actualy a by-syllabicaly word in Rom.

Lang: creS.tin.

Noone disputes that Rom. _cre$tin_ is disyllabic.

> The latin word would be divised by me as chris.ti.a.nus; the

unstressed /e/

> ( < i) should have yelded & if I do not mistake here, thus the

expected form

> shold have been *cr&Stian

Yodicisation reduces it to chris."tia.nus, but note that the
intervocalic -sti- needs to be treated as a unit; compare softened
<sc> > $t. The first syllable is unstressed, so we get chri- > cre-.
The cluster gives -$- (as in pã$une). The stressed -a- before /n/
should give â, so the expected form is *cre$ân.

> I guess we don't need to speak about this word too much since

there are

> already the mentions that the word has in all Romance curious

phonetic forms

> in comparations with what should have been expected due regular

development.

I agree that the word is liable to be reformed, hence the 't' in
French <chrétien>. I don't know whether the word <cretin> embodies
the -ia:nus or the -i:nus suffix; I'm interested in the origin and
cognates (other than personal names) of the girl's name 'Christina'.

Richard.