Re: East Romance -i v. West Romance -s (was: Rom aia - Alb ajo < PA

"Yes, but remember the 'excesses' of carrying over -s > -i to 2nd sg.
happened in East Romance, not West."

The i- to 2nd sg. singular in Romanian has no link with Latin -s.
At that moment (sec II - V en) there wasn't any -s in Latin 2nd sg.
-s was already lost.
Best Regards,
Marius Alexandru

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "tgpedersen" <tgpedersen@...> wrote:
> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Richard Wordingham"
> <richard.wordingham@...> wrote:
> > --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "tgpedersen" <tgpedersen@...>
> wrote:
> >
> > > It's interesting (at least to me) that western Romance picked
> the
> > > consonant ending -s of acc. pl. to be the caseless pl., while
> > > eastern Romance picked the vowel endings -i, -ae. Once that
> ending
> > > was shibbolethised, is it possible -i spread to other abodes
of -
> s,
> > > ie 2nd sg., in eastern Romance?
> >
> > Your suggestion needs some dates. Remember that Old French still
> > distinguised nominatve and accusative, especially in the 2nd
> > declension - see e.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_French - or
> > look it up in the well-stocked library you frequent. I think the
> > abandonment of the case distinction in nouns is too late for your
> > theory to work.
> >
>
> Yes, but remember the 'excesses' of carrying over -s > -i to 2nd
sg.
> happened in East Romance, not West. The French kept the inherited
> 2nd sg. -s, since they had no particular reason to shift. I will
> therefore, with your permission, disregard the timeline of French
in
> that question. Also, taking into account Hans Kuhn's argument that
> early written sources tend to be of a nature that excludes the
lower
> strata, sociologically and linguistically, the final push towards
> giving up case may have been under way in French much earlier than
> we can document it.
>
>
> Torsten