--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "stlatos" <stlatos@...> wrote:
>
> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Grzegorz Jagodzinski"
> <grzegorj2000@> wrote:
> >
> > Professor Witold Man'czak, a famous Polish Romanceist, in his
> "Fonética and morfología histórica del Español", wrote (p. 33):
> >
> > <<
> > § 85. Desarrollo regular: ssi, sse entre voc. > j > [s^] > [x]:
> >
> > *bassia:re > bajar, russeum > rojo
> > >>
> >
> > Btw. single -si- yielded -s- in Spanish, not -j-, like in ba:sio:
>
> beso.
> >
> > In other words, -j- in pájaro is regular if we accepted the
> intermediate form *passiarum
>
> This just leaves the Portuguese and Romanian forms irregular.
I fully agree: this *passiarum seems 'ad-hoc' at the first
glance...when I saw it I have said : 'what stupidity'...
However, next it makes me think that we have Latin bassus from
where the attested Old French abaissier with -ssi- is originated :
Latin bassus > (a) Dialectal Romance (ad) *bassia:re < Old French
abaissier
Next the Spanish bajar < (a) Dialectal Romance *bassia:re < Latin
bassus could be Ok too, isn't it ?...
And once we accept this ss>ssi in *bassi-a:re based on the Old
French abaissier, and we think next that this *bassi-a:re can be well
the source of Spanish bajar too, next we are not far away to accept
this *passiare too ; but of course not as a Common Romance word (in
Romanian the word is /pas&re/, so no trace of /ssi/), only as a later
(Romance?) Dialectal form
However Latin ss > Proto-Spanish ssi (even only for some
contexts) is not a Romance to Spanish transformation either...
So finally, it seems that ss > ssi is the influence of another
idiom (*bassia:re, *passiare) situated at the French-Spanish border
that has transformed Latin ss in ssi
Any hint here?
Thanks,
Marius