Re: [tied] Romance Neuter Nouns (was: Lat. -idus)

Richard Wordingham wrote:

> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "altamix" <alxmoeller@...> wrote:
>>
>> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "petegray" <petegray@...> wrote:
>>>> I think it can reasonably be said that Italian
>>>> words like _uovo_ (singular, masculine), _uova_ (plural,
>>>> feminine) 'egg' are neuter rather than of mixed gender.
>>>
>>> Grammatical gender refers not to the form of the noun, but to
> the
>>> form of adjectives, articles, determinants, etc which agree with
>>> that noun. So I disagree - the term "neuter" would not make sense
>>> in Italian, and plurals like uova, paia, braccia etc must be called
>>> feminine plural.
>
> This is exactly the behaviour of the Romanian 'neuter'. I do not
> see any difference between Italian and Romanian in this respect.
>
>> I agree with you here. I have to add tough, my remarque with "I
>> shouldn't use "neutra" within Romance" was pointing not to the
>> forms "neutra" versus "neuter" but just to the almost inexistence
> of
>> this gender in Romance.
>
> Alex, you confuse me. Are you saying Romanian does not have a
> neuter gender? (It's a defensible view - Pete Gray has already
> defended it!)

How can I say that? Of course Rom. has a neuter gender. I agreed with
Peter that the adjectives, articles, determinants agree with that noun.
I was and I am not very clear about what he meant with "form of the
noun" in context of grammatical gender but this doesn't matter too much.
Wherer his disagree, he disagree about using "mixed gendres" but this is
just a matter of calling it. Fact is, for sg. neuter nouns have a
masculine aspect and all articles, determinants, adjectives are
presented in their masculine sg. form, for plural, the articles,
determinants, adjectives are presented in their feminine plural form
with the neuter noun. The "mixed gendre" is in so far a reality when
speaking about the forms in sg and pl of determinants, articles and
adjectives.

>> since the intervocalic "w" ( herewith included Latin "b,v" ) is
>> allways preserved,

> - Alex reminds me of an unfinished debate at Balkanika -

well, I presented there my view in an article which is made up of 4
parts. Who want to read it can find it here:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/balkanika/message/874
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/balkanika/message/877
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/balkanika/message/880
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/balkanika/message/887

From the lexical data presented there , it results the Latin
intervocalic "v/b" aka "w" is kept in Romanian, contrary to the accepted
opinion that this sound get lost.

>> then one has to asks himself how does it comme
>> the both forms, sg. and pl. are identicaly in Rom. and Italian ?
>> Do
>> we have indeed to do with accidental identicaly developments from
>> Latin to Italian and Romanian or we have to speak here about loans
>> from a language to another language?
>
> In Latin:
>
> Nom, acc s.: o:vum
> Abl. s.: o:vo:
> Nom, acc pl: o:va
>
> This Latin pattern has been preserved in both Italian and Romanian.
> (The Latin pattern is pretty much the same as the corresponding PIE
> pattern.)

and this makes the things very interesting.

> The common innovation is that adjectives qualifying
> neuter plural nouns have the feminine plural form.

in the case of "egg" the "-�" is not a desinence for marking any plural
form but this "-�" is a desinence for marking the singular for feminine
and some masculine nouns. For masculine, it appears they are very few
masc nouns which ends in "-�" in sg. I can just recall of 2 words
(father and prist aka "tat�" and "pop�")

Is there any

> trace of this in Western Romance, or indeed in the western provinces
> of the Empire?
>
> Richard.

I should like to know it too..

Alex





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