From: Miguel Carrasquer
Message: 35966
Date: 2005-01-16
>petegray wrote:And in fact zero.
>
>>
>>> [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
>
>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.Yes. ovae > oue > ouã "eggs", like nove > noue > nouã "9".
>
>pai/paie, ou/ouã, brats/bratse & bratsuri, the other word have no
>counterpart as neuter in Rom.
>
>The main aspect was here the "-ã" 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 "-ã", the question was if this "-ã" is from an
>"-e" or from an "-a". I guess the "-ã" in this case derive from an older
>"-e" since there is no plural in "-a" in Rom.
>Thus, the Latin plural inSp. cincuenta, Cat. cinquanta etc. The Lat. suffix -ginta:
>"-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".