The Latin Neuter Plurals in Romance - Page ON

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Italian as the Latinism frigo. In the case of OPUS, Rum. opuri ‘literary works’ is
a modern formation, and the word was only handed down traditionally in the
singular form in collocations like ORum. opŭ este ‘it is necessary’ and cognate
forms elsewhere, such as It. è uopo (the reflexes of OPERA have come from the
singular noun). From GLOMUS (pl. GLOMERA), Rumanian has ghemuri, where
Italian has basically ghiomo, ghiomi, though other forms with -r- appear, such
as SIt. gliommero, gliuommeru and Tusc. gnomero. VELLUS was prone to be
confused with VILLU ‘shaggy hair’, and for Italian I have found only vello
(which, like Ptg. velo, combines both meanings), with no -r- forms; the word
appears to be absent from Rumanian, but instead we have the word văl ‘veil’, pl.
văluri, with an -l- which can only come from Latin -LL-, so seemingly coming
from VELU × VILLU, *VILLORA (with ă from a Latin close ē). Going further afield
and taking the other Latin R-stems which appear with neuter forms, in the case
of FULGUR ‘lightning’ we find Old Italian has folgora as a feminine singular
beside folgore, where Rumanian has the “neuter” pl. fulgeri or fulgere from
fulger (the stem used by Lucretius). MARMORA ‘marble’ appears as the Rum.
fem. marmură, and is similarly seen in Lecc. marmura (M.-L., Schicks.), where
standard Italian has marmo. FURFURA ‘scurf’ survives in It. forfora. Other cases
are more doubtful. Both Meyer-Lübke and Rohlfs quote North Italian feminine
singulars like ro(u)ra, rugura from ROBUR ‘oak’ (where we have seen that
ROBORA survived in Rhaeto-Romance as a collective), corresponding to
standard Italian rovere (masc. or fem.), but this form, and acera from areas
further south, may simply have resulted from gender characterization.
PULVERA/*PULVORA, ‘dust’ which has survived in other languages, is also
represented in many Italian dialects in forms like pôlvra, porva, pórbia, purbara,
though the standard language only has the fem. polvere, where Rumanian has
similar pulbere. In the same way Italian only has the fem. cenere where other
languages have forms apparently going back to *CINERA ‘ashes’. We may also
for convenience include here some -ORA forms created for other proparoxytone