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Cari amici,
I have a bit of trouble with a passage in
Grandgent's "An Introduction to Vulgar Latin" -- an
old work, but still of some value as a general
overview. The passage in question follows. Since
I've seen some badly mangled Unicode lately even on
Yahoogroups I've replaced macrons by following
colons and breves by following left parentheses,
replacing original parentheses with braces.
# 225. But the combinations _e�, i�, o�, u�_ developed
# differently, _e�_ and _i�_ apparently being
# contracted into _e:_, _o�_ and _u�_ into _o:_, at an
# early date: a_ri(e(tem > are:tem_ {Varro, "ares
# veteres pro aries dixisse"}; _*de:-e(xci(to >
# de:xci(to_ > It. _desto_; _facie:bam > *face:bam_;
# _muli(e(rem > mul'erem_, the _i(_ remaining long
# enough to palatalize the _l_ {the Romance [E] was
# doubtless a later analogical development};
# _pari(e(tes > pare:tes_; _pre(he(nde(re >
# pre:nde(re_, then _*pre(nde(re_ through the analogy
# of _re(dde(re_ and perhaps also of asce_(nde(re,
# defe(nde(re, pe(nde(re, te(nde(re_; _qui(e:tus >
# que:tus_, common in late inscriptions {cf.
# _requebit_}; _co(ho(rtem > co:rtem_; _co(o(pe(ri:re
# > co:pe(ri:re_, then _*co(pe(ri:re *co(p'ri:re_
# through the analogy of _co(-_ and perhaps also of
# _o(pe(ra, o(pus_; _du(o:de(cim > do:de(cim_
# {_dodece_}.
If this contraction really is very early, which it
has to be if it preceded the diphthongization of
former _e(_ and _o(_ into _ie_ and _uo_, *and* it
didn't bleed the palatalization of _l_ (and
presumably of _n_) then the palatalization of
resonants itself must be very early indeed, which
seems unlikely to me, unless there were several
palatalizations of resonants occurring at different
times, since a palatalization like VERECUNDIA > Old
French _vergogne_ hardly can be 'early'. Was this
contraction that Grandgent describes a dialectal
phenomenon within Latin that normally didn't affect
the dialects leading to Romance? I really don't know
my way out here, so I'd be grateful for any elucidation
anyone might offer.
--
/BP 8^)>
--
Benct Philip Jonsson -- melroch at melroch dot se
"Maybe" is a strange word. When mum or dad says it
it means "yes", but when my big brothers say it it
means "no"!
(Philip Jonsson jr, age 7)