The Latin Neuter Plurals in Romance - Page ON

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like cambiora, digiunora, fusora, ginocchiora, granora, occhiora, ramora,
scudora, sonnora, vinora; other such forms are bagnora, vrazzora, donora,
filora, gaiora, lignora, ossora, regnora, sassora. Besides these we have certain
2nd-declension masculines and other formations for which there is early
evidence of -ora forms in Lombard Latin, and which perhaps became neuter in
late Latin because of their collective signification: arbustora, campora, domora,
nidora, planora, rivora, vicora and so on (some of them still continued later),
with other forms like fornora, fuocora, nerbora appearing in Old Italian, to
which we find correspondences in Rum. câmpuri, focuri, while modern Italian
dialects also have jocura, trondra/tronola, saccure corresponding to Rum.
jocuri, tunuri, sacuri (so M.-L., Schicks.), besides others like anellora,
cappellora, pugnora, solcora. (In the case of Rumanian it will have been
observed that there is often more than one form, so that the -uri form may often
be a modern development, and the argument of parallel development should not
be pressed too far.)
h) Apart from these, there have been other developments which can
only be local, some of which were noted in §4. Thus in Lombard Latin and
Old Italian we find the ending extended to certain loanwords, while in
Rumanian it has become virtually the standard plural ending for any
monosyllabic loanword denoting an inanimate object, or words ending in a
foreign suffix like -iş, -ug, as well as many others. In Italian dialects,
especially those in which the feminine ending -e changed phonetically to -i,
this -ora ending was extended to many masculine nouns (with feminine
article) to distinguish them from the corresponding feminine ones, as noted in
§5c, and even to a few feminines (for examples, see Rohlfs, §370). Standard
Rumanian has not added -uri to masculine nouns, though, as noted in §5c, it
has added it to some feminine nouns, especially mass nouns, giving the idea of
‘kinds of...’ (perhaps starting out from forms like arămuri, legumuri), but