Re: Romanian _abur_

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "alexandru_mg3" <alexandru_mg3@...>
wrote:

>
> > Richard wrote:
> > Pre-Albanian *abull itself has one major problem - shouldn't
> the /b/
> > have dropped?
> >
> > Richard.
>
>
> 1. Of course that should be dropped if it was intervocalic, that
> seems to be the case (from here my question to Marius Iacomi that
> considered the dropped of intervocalic b in PRom a 'well known
> situation').

> For Romanian abur <-> Alb avull, Hamp indicated < PIE *n.bh(u)lo
> from PIE root nebh- 'fog' [with n.>a in Early-PAlb]

The problem I see is that the *b has not dropped in *Albanian*.

> 2. In Romanian we have also '(sã) aibã' < Latin habeam and Rom.
> roib < considered from Latin rubeum (with an unexplained ó>u in
> PRomanian) => where the intervocalic b is well and safe there too
> (of course there are different explanations on these exceptions but
> none of them in my opinion is a safer one)...(like j in bj-e was
> consonantic (Densusianu) or b was initially dropped and was restored
> later to fill the hiatus etc..)

The preservation of /b/ in _aibã_ is an Eastern Romance issue, not
just a Romanian one. The corresponding form is _abbia_ in Italian,
again with unexpected preservation of /b/. Some of the simple past
forms of this verb also preserve /b/ in Italian - 1s. _ebbi_, 3s
_ebbe_ and 3pl. _ebbero_. Perhaps the /u/ was consonantal in some
varieties of Latin _hábui_ and _hábuit_, maybe even in *hábuerunt for
the regular Proto-Romance *_habúerunt_ (attestable?) (as opposed to
classical _habué:runt_), though I think _ebbero_ just reflects the
usual alternation between the stem of the Latin perfect and the stem
of the present and is based on the singular forms.

Richard.