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There has been some discussion of this over on Conlang of late. It is indeed VL that is reconstructed, or something quite close to it. I don't see how one could pull full blown Ciceronean CL out of caseless Romance languages. The reconstructionist would know, with reasonable certainty, that Latin should have cases, but I don't think he could get all the declensions and cases from just the Romanian and OFr evidence. Though I could be wrong there. Padraic --- On Tue, 10/18/11, Carl Edlund Anderson <cea@hidden.email> wrote: > From: Carl Edlund Anderson <cea@hidden.email> > Subject: Re: [romconlang] Reconstructed Latin > To: romconlang@yahoogroups.com > Date: Tuesday, October 18, 2011, 6:18 PM > On 18 Oct 2011, at 14:27 , thomasruhm > wrote: > > > > I heard about Latin could be reconstructed from > romance languages. I only knew about reconstructed late > Vulgar Latin, which already had a very reduced case system. > > Would a reconstruction come close to documented > Latin? > > > Are you thinking about Hall's reconstructed > Proto-Romance? It comes "reassuringly close" to Latin > -- though perhaps a late, Vulgar Latin. For example, > Hall was able to determine Latin had contrasting vowel sets, > though could not determine that the contrasting feature was > length (though, of course, we know that from records of > classical Latin). I think reconstructing something > exactly like written classical Latin as it is preserved > would be quite unlikely; after all, written classical Latin > as it is preserved represents only part of what was a more > complicated linguistic environment. Likewise, a > reconstruction from later Romance can only represent a > portion of what was originally a more complicated linguistic > environment. In the case of Latin, we are lucky to be > able to do both (i.e. see preserved written Latin, and > reconstruct from a range of daughter languages), but in any > event we are of necessity approximating. We can > postulate with some confidence that there were features of > "Roman Latin" that were neither recorded at the time nor > reflected in later Romance. Likewise, our records of later > Romance are necessarily partial, and we cannot know what > what features might have been preserved (or innovated) in > some variety of Romance that disappeared without > trace. So how could we hope to construct a > doppelgänger for written classical Latin as it is > preserved? That's an "unrealistic" or partial thing in > any case … > > Cheers, > Carl > > -- > Carl Edlund Anderson > http://www.carlaz.com/ > > > > > > ------------------------------------ > > To unsubscribe, send an email to: > romconlang-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com > > Yahoo! Groups Links > > > romconlang-fullfeatured@yahoogroups.com > > >