On Tue, Feb 17, 2004, at 04:47 AM, Richard Wordingham wrote:
> I notice that DEX identifies a lot of the Romanian abstract nouns in
> -oare as loans
> from French.
Yes, but they are adapted into forms influenced
by inherited ones (e.g. tumor > neol. tumoare; which
recently has produced a new... fad: tumórã!)
Cf. râncoare ( < rancor) (now obsolete and regional)
replaced by the neol. ranchiunã.
Also cf. basic words such as "flower", "stench; fig.
lazybones or a despicable person": floare, putoare.
> Just as there is no way for Romanian _sorã_ 'sister'? I recall
> seeing the explanation _soror_ > sor(u) > sorã, with the masculine
> ending being replaced by the feminine ending.
What would be the objection to this approach:
"sorã and sor' are contracted forms of an older
surórã"?
Noteworthy: the plural of all of them is suróri.
And the correct singular genitive and dative:
"a/al/ai/ale surorii mele", "surorii mele",
even if the tendency has been strong in recent
decades to replace it by "sorei".
> Richard.
George