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And if you were using only the modern Romlangs, even French would be of no help. Adam On Tue, Oct 18, 2011 at 6:10 PM, Padraic Brown <elemtilas@hidden.email> wrote: > ** > > > 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 > > > > > > > > > [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]