[YG Conlang Archives] > [romanceconlang group] > messages [Date Index] [Thread Index] >
From: "hotmyol" <acz0605@hidden.email>
> I've been wondering, what is it about Italic languages that sets them
> apart from other languages? At first I thought it had to do with the
> complicated spelling/pronunciation, but then I found that Welsh isn't
> complicated in that form. If you do not understand what I am
> asking, here is an example:
I just read something on this this morning :x)
From Andrew Sihler, _New Comparative Grammar of Greek and Latin_, about the
shared innovations of the Italic branch:
<< ...[i]n morphology, the extension of the ablative singular in -d from the
o-stems to other declensions; partial fusion of i-stems and consonant stems;
fusion of the aorist and the perfect; the formation of imperfect indicative and
imperfect subjunctive; the gerundive. In phonology, the change of the voiced
aspirated stops to voiceless fricatives and the merging of PItal. *f and *T
[theta] as _f_. In vocabulary, L di:co:, O deicum 'say' (in other IE languages
'point (out)', with different words for 'say'); and 'law' from the root *leg-
'gather' as in L le:x, O ligud. What remains to be settled is whether these
details must be traced to a common ancestor or can be accounted for by
borrowing. >>
That last remark refers to an earlier statement:
<< The languages that constitute the traditional Italic branch of the IE
family fall into two distinct groups, Sabellian (whose best-attested components
are Oscan and Umbrian) and Latin-Faliscan. There are so many differences
between the two in structure and lexicon that a case can be made that the notion
of an Italic Branch is an error, a distortion of the linguistic analysis to
justify a subgroup based more on geography than linguistic evidence. >>
*Muke!
--
http://www.frath.net/