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I should have noted that the Rumanian word _pu,tin_ (actually with a t with comma below \u0163 or \u021B) is an regular reflex of PU:TI:NUS, remarkable only in that it must be an early loan from another Romance variety where -I:NUS remained productive. Those things happen too! On 2008-08-28 Scotto Hlad wrote:
Thanks so much for this! Scotto-----Original Message----- From: romconlang@yahoogroups.com [mailto:romconlang@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of Benct Philip JonssonSent: Wednesday, August 27, 2008 3:10 AM To: romconlang@yahoogroups.comSubject: Re: [romconlang] (Long) Re: Etymology of Ibero-Romance "Pequeño" and Cognates Since the issue has recently come up both in a private correspondence and on this list I looked up my old notes concerning that mysterious Romance root for 'small, little'. The most likely story goes something like this:In Latin there was a word PU:TUS, meaning '(small) boy'. In Vulgar Latin this word had a variant *PUTTUS, since there was a general tendency for V:C and VC: (long vowel + single consonant and short vowel + long/double consonant) to alternate with each other, and then by analogy or dialect mixture a third variant *PU:TTUS with both the stressed vowel and the following consonant long[^note 1]: .