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

On Sat, 15 Jan 2005 17:23:34 +0100, alex
<alxmoeller@...> wrote:

>petegray wrote:
>>> This Latin pattern [singular in -o, plural in -a] has been preserved
>>> in
>>> both Italian and >Romanian. ... The common innovation is that
>>> adjectives qualifying
>>> neuter plural nouns have the feminine plural form. Is there any
>>> trace of this in Western Romance, or indeed in the western provinces
>>> of the Empire?
>>
>> I can't think of any. And since the western languages generalise the
>> -s plural, it would be no surprise if all traces of the plural in -a
>> had disappeared.
>
>But Peter, the same can be said about Eastern Romance. I mean, the same
>argumentation. Since the eastern languages generalise the -i plural, why
>do we find plural in "-a" in these languages? OK, I cannot speak for
>Italian in this case but I speak for Romanian. So far I recall, just
>"egg" has plural in "-ã" and that is very curious.

Not any curiouser than the fact that Italian has lost the
neuter ending -ora (still not uncommon in Old Italian)
except in the word donora.

But in fact ouã does not have a plural in -ã, historically.
In Romanian the old neuter pl. ending -a has been
analogically changed to -e (after the feminine -a, pl. -e,
something which is abundantly attested already in Vulgar
Latin), so most old neuters that do not have -uri (< -ure)
make their plural in -e (lemn, bratz, corn, os, mãr, etc.).
The same goes for ouã < oue, which goes like nove(m) > nouã,
with the regular development -we > -wa.

=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
mcv@...