Re: the fascination of illV

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Richard Wordingham" wrote:

>> To summ-up, the reflexes of Latin "illV" should be as follow:
>>
>> el, ea, ãla, aia, ãia, alea, al, a, ai, ale
>
> You think that's bad? Look at what they trot out for French:
>
> il, elle, ils, elles, le, la, les, lui, eux, leur.

Italian: egli/elli, ella, elli/egli(no), elle, lo (> il), la,
gli, le, lui, loro, etc.

> However, isn't the -a in the Romanian demonstratives an extra
> morpheme?

Yes, it's the reminder of a supplementary demonstrative, required
if the noun remains unprecised: you cannot say "acel vorbeSte" but
"acela vorbeSte" (or: "acel om vorbeSte"). It's obviously the same
"illa" > "-a" of the definite article.

>> [...] there is "illa" > u" for explaining "die:s" > "ziuã"
>> trough an "die:s illa".
>
> Or people who interpret that argument that way!

This is Murphy: no matter how clear you make your explanations,
there will allways be someone able to misunderstand you. :-)

> Remember that _stella illa_ > _steaua_ proceeeds something like
> _stélla illa_ > _stéllalla_ > _stéauauã_ > _stéaua_.

Well, that's more like stélla > steáuã and demonstrative illa > -a
which attaches naturally as definite article to make -a instead of
-ã; the ending -uã is unstable in Daco-Romanian and gets lost for
the unarticulated form, unlike in other dialects.

> The difficult part of the argument is Latin _die:_ > _zi_.
> _mie_ 'me, to me' seems to offer a parallel.

There is no need of parallel, remember your own example. "zi" is
simply a DR backformation from "ziuã" < "dies illa" by loss of
final unstable ending -uã (there is no "zi" in Aromanian, only
"ziuã").

>> Dear Miguel, if "Diana" was already "Djana" in Latin it should
>> have entered Romanian as "Djana" and it should have yeleded
>> "Ziana".

Of course not. Palatal glide is absorbed in palatalized consonant.
The nexus /dj/ > /d3/ > /dz/ already in VL, there is plenty of
evidence for that. For instance, Renzi & Andreose: "Contemporanea
allo sviluppo /tj/ > /ts/ è l'evoluzione di /d/ + /j/ in /d3/ e poi
in /dz/, evoluzione che [...] viene a coincidere con l'esito di /j/:
in un'iscrizione della metà del II secolo d.C. troviamo <oze> per
<hodie> `oggi` [...]", or I. Fischer: "undoubtable is only dental +
/y/ lenition earliness and its phonetical result, close to /ts/ or
/dz/ [...] affricated result of dental + y/ appears written the same
as the result of "spirantization" of /y/: <oze> [...] per <hodie>,
<azutoribus> (= <aiutoribus>), <zebus> (= <diebus>), <zabulus>
(= <diabolus>), [...]"

>> And the word is there !!! There is the holiday of "Sânziana"
>> which si Santa Diana ( sân+ziana, where sân< Latin santu)

Sânziene < Sanctus dies Johannis.

> Yes, that just about sums up the relationship of '_dia:na_ >
> _zânã_' - the relationship of developments and rules
> is perfect!

Of course.

Regards,
Marius Iacomi