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--- In romconlang@yahoogroups.com, "Mark G" <codename_gimmick@...> wrote: > Is there any evidence that some Romance languages retained the > third person pronouns "is" and "ea?" I know I've seen Italian > dialects that have the feminine pronoun "ea," but looking at > their masculine counterparts, it typically looks like that may > just be a mutated version of "illa" that lost the lateral. I've never heard of any natlang retaining is/ea (this question comes up somewhere once in a blue moon), but my knowledge of dialects and minority languages is just about nil. > I'm aware that Spanish contains demonstrative pronouns "eso" and > "ésto"-- perhaps "eso" is a derivation from "is"? It seems to > fit the vowel shift of unstressed 'i' to 'e'. Ese/esa/eso is supposed to come from ipse/ipsa/ipsum and este/esta/esto from iste/ista/istud. Incidentally, the common change of 'i' to 'e' is based on length rather than stress, with different complications in each language. > What I'm curious to see, though, are 'is' and 'ea' used as they > were used in CL... even better, are there any conlangs that > retain these usages? I have a fantasy language Rubaga that uses is/ea as both definite articles and 3rd person pronouns (IIRC -- I haven't worked on it in some time). It's based on CL for certain nefarious reasons rather than VL. Jeff