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On Wed, Jan 17, 2001 at 05:52:27PM +0100, BP Jonsson wrote: > At 17:28 2001-01-14 -0600, Eric Christopherson wrote: > >^ Is <pora> a conjunction of pol + a, or something separate? And is it > >pretty much like <para> in Spanish? (And where did <para> come from?) > > According to Meyer-Lübke Sp. _para_ is a compounded form of > PER. Unfortunately he does not say *what* PER was compounded with to > arrive at _para_, but probably it was AD. > > Catalan has _pera_, BTW. Ah, thanks, BP. Actually, after asking the question, I happened across an answer to it in my historical grammar of Spanish, but it contradicts yours slightly. My source says that para < pora < Latin pro+ad, but it doesn't say why the o became a (nor why por < pro, but I know metathesis of -Vr to -rV was somewhat common, as in quattuor > cuatro, so maybe the opposite metathesis too). What other sources do the Romance "for" words come from? I assume French <pour> is the same as <por>, but there's also <par> (IIRC). And Italian uses <per>, no? Also, do the others display a distinction like that of Spanish para vs. por? -- Eric Christopherson / *Aiworegs Ghristobhorosyo