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

From: alex
Message: 35963
Date: 2005-01-16

petegray wrote:

>
>> [for Romanian, so far I recall], just
>> "egg" has plural in "-�" 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

if for Italian there are 5-6 "regular"-s, for Rom. is so far I recall
just 1.
For the example you gave here from Italian one has as paralel in Rom.

pai/paie, ou/ou�, brats/bratse & bratsuri, the other word have no
counterpart as neuter in Rom.

The main aspect was here the "-�" which can derive from "-a" or from
"-e". Since Italian has "-a" for "uovo" and the Rom. word is the only
one which has plural in "-�", the question was if this "-�" is from an
"-e" or from an "-a". I guess the "-�" in this case derive from an older
"-e" since there is no plural in "-a" in Rom. Thus, the Latin plural in
"-a" appears to be mentained in Italian�and -I guess- In Dalmatian. Why
I say "I guess" in Dalmatian? I am thinking just at "fifty" which
appears to be "sinquonta" but I am not sure if this "sinquonta" shows
indeed a plural in "-a".

> Peter

Alex




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