---- Original Message ----
From: alexandru_mg3
To:
cybalist@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Thursday, October 25, 2007 12:25 AM
Subject: Re: [tied] swallow vs. nighingale, PASSer
> --- 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
Only one notice (as I have written about Spanish "weak rule" ss > ssi
analogous to ll > [lj] and nn > [nj] in another post). Namely, what makes
you believe that there ever was a language you call Romance?
My answer is simple: there was not such a language at all, and all Romance
languages come from Latin. Not from mythic "Vulgar Latin" but from the same
Latin which is taught today as a literary language of ancient Rome. What we
might call "Romance" was an L-complex, i.e. a group of close but distinct
dialects, not forming a single language with one "standard" form of words.
What is the evidence? See books of Man'czak :-) Shortly speaking: there were
very few phonetic changes which comprised all the Roman territory. Yes, one
of such changes was disappearence of "h", the other was -m > -n in
monosyllables (like rem > French rien) while -m > -0 elsewhere - but these
changes were already present in Classical Latin (-m was counted as no sound
in poetry, -h- could appear ex nihilo or disappear sometimes...). Which is
more, there were changes in Latin in imperial time which were retreated
next, like the change au > o:, which survived only in particular words (like
lo:tus < lautus, cf. lava:re). Even if au > o finally, it had time to
palatalize "c" in Old French (while the original o: never caused the change
c > ch). In other words, Romance languages developped from "written Latin",
or from cultural Latin of the times of Imperium Romanum, not from the
language of people of Rome in (let's say) Caesar's time (in which au had
already changed into o:, at least in some words).
Some people said (long ago, truly speaking) that e.g. (long) o: merged with
(short) u in "Latina vulgaris" (or in so called Romance). Indeed, this
change took place on a huge territory of the empire - but not everywhere,
for example not in Dacia and not on Sardinia. The same about other vowel
changes, about so called Romance lenition (p, t, c [k] > b, d, g between
vowels - here we have differences even between particular Italian dialects)
and about many other processes.
For example, "ae" merged with (short) "e" (already in the classic time!)
yielding open e (when stressed) - but its further development depended on a
dialect. For instance, in Proto-Italian or Proto-French this open "è"
yielded the diphtong "iè" in an open syllable and did not change in a close
syllable - while in Proto-Spanish it diphtongized in all syllables (all the
time, when stressed).
Naturally, such forms as *bassia:re, *passiare etc. existed only in some
parts of the Empire (or: of the Romance territory after the fall of Rome:
Marcus showed this parts correctly). It is quite possible that the Basques
played some role in it, I do not know it. All I can suppose is that this
particular change is anyhow related to the palatalization of other geminates
in Proto-Spanish (and Proto-Catalan, to be exact).
I do not know if Basques ever lived in Catalonia (but my guess is "no"). The
substrate language which "helped" geminates to palatalize in Spanish
probably did also gemination of "r" in anlaut (this is why we have only
[r^-], or [r:-] (strong or long initial "r") in Spanish today). But the same
language probably caused gemination of initial "l" in Catalan, so in
Catalonia its influence was the strongest. This geminated "ll-" next
palatalized, the same as other geminated "ll" in Spanish and Catalan. So, it
would be most logical to seach the source of this palatalizations and
geminations near to Barcelona rather than Bilbao. I prefer the term "unknown
nation" for now rather than "the Basques". Perhaps it was Iberians which
might have been unrelated to the Basques as some people say.
Grzegorz J.
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