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

From: petegray
Message: 35961
Date: 2005-01-16

> 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.

No it can't. Let me re-word it. Western Romance generalises an -s
plural, and vowel plurals are lost (whether -i or -e or -a); Eastern
Romance generalises vowel plurals and -s plurals are lost - but vowel
plurals (-i, -e and -a), being generalised, survive.

> [for Romanian, so far I recall], just
> "egg" has plural in "-ã" and that is very curious.

There are 5 or 6 with regular -a plurals in Italian, and another 15 or so
with both -a and -i plurals. The commonest are:
paio / paia; riso / risa; uovo / uova; ceninaio / centinaia
braccio / braccia; dito / dita; frutto / frutta

Peter