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Subject: Gl�, j'hau troviad-lo From: Benct Philip Jonsson <bpj@hidden.email> Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2009 18:44:21 +0100 To: romconlang@yahoogroups.com I have long wondered what would be the Rhodrese word for 'yes', distinct both from French _o�l/oui_ and from Proven�al _oc_, and now I found it by accident when looking for something else. It turns out there is a word Romansch "gea" and Sardinian "eja" and Corsican "i�" derived from ILLI EST. Here follows a dictionary entry retrieved from a Corsican site:| <http://adecec.net/infcor/ricerca.php?f=oui&sf=4&submit=Recherche&inglese=1&definizione=1&etimulugia=1&sinonimi=1&antonimi=1>
* i�, isi� * definizione: Serve � marc� un'affirmazione, un'apprubazione: ai a fame? I�! Stai b� ? I�. - ma ancu u disapprovu, � perplessit�, u fastidiu : I� i� ! o ancu u sdegnu ironicu : I� ch� ... ! * etimulugia: da l'anzianu toscanu "egli �", da u lat. pup. "illi est". * inglese: yes * sinonimi: s� * antonimi: n� This would become _gl�_ /LE/ in Rhodrese, without a final _-t_ because it would normally be pre-pausal. (The preserved final _-t_ of the third person singular of verbs was probably reintroduced by analogy from positions before a following vowel, as in questions with following forms of ILLE (EST ILLE? > Old Rh. /E'del/) or the frequent case of a following ET or AUT. Forms with a following object form of ILLE: HABET 'LU, HABET 'LA > O.Rh. _hallo, halla_ /'ar`U/, /'ar`@/ would also reinforce the sense of the verb ending in a dental stop, since /r`/ could be derived from any of _LL, T'L, D'L_ and these forms would be a moot case. To the extent that language changes are dictated by a percieved need on the part of the speakers to preserve or innovate distinctions the fact that third person singular forms with lost -T, which did occur before consonants and prepausally in O.Rh., had become identical to first person singular forms in most verbs -- i.e. all which didn't have the root vowel _a_.) This possible connexion or closer relatedness between Rh. and Corsican is interesting since I have earlier been suspecting a similarity in the treatment of early Vulgar Latin short */I/ and */U/ in Corsican and Rhodrese -- in brief these eVL vowels in these languages merged with eVL */E/ and */O/ from Latin short /e/ and /o/ rather than with eVL */e/ and */o/ from Latin long /e:/ and /o:/. (At least they did in Lucal Corsican and possibly Rhodrese, since I'm not 100% sure Meyer-L�bke meant they did in Terran Cosican! :-] see| <http://wiki.frath.net/User:Melroch/Vulgar_Latin#endnote_Corsican>)
In which case FIDES (eVL /'fIdEm/) would become VL ?*/'fEdE/ rather than */'fedE/ and so late VL */'fiEdE/ Rh. _fier_ rather than lVL */'fe:de/ and Rh. _fair_, and similarly LUPUS > Rh. _luop_ rather than _laup_. Latin /e:/ and /o:/ in open syllables would still become Rh. _ai_ and _au_ so TECTUM > _taitx_, and POPULUS (the poplar tree, not the people!) > _paubo_. This would decreace the incidence of _ai_ and _au/ao_, which may be a Good Thing. I've also found the right way to form negation in Rhodrese. The pattern is _jo ne dig m�_. The particle _m�_ /mi/ or /mI/ is derived from an unstressed form of the word MICA 'crumb'. As a noun it was replaced by MICULINA which became _miglin@_ [mI'LinI], plural _migl�_ [mi'Li] /miL/, so it's hard to say if _m�_ is derived from MICA *[miG@] with loss of [G] in unstressed position or from MICULA *[miL@] with [L] > [j] under similar condtions. The spelling with _�_ doesn't mean that _m�_ is always stressed, but is only intended to distinguish it from the first person singular dative pronoun _mi_ MIHI. In fact these are perfect homonyms, and may be hard to sort out for schoolchildren in expressions like _El ne dairt mi lo m�_ 'He didn't give it to me' (ILLE NON DEDIT MIHI ILLUM MICAM).