The Latin Neuter Plurals in Romance - Page ON

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mortaja, Ptg. mortalha, Sard. mortadza, mortalla. Another parallel between
Sardinian and Spanish is seen in a word in -ILIA, AQUATILIA ‘watery things’,
which gives Sard. (Nuor.) abbatidza, Sp. aguadija, Ast. aguadía, Ptg. aguadilha
for various concentrations of watery fluid in the body. One more example of Sp.
-aja is found in the case of SPONSALIA ‘betrothal’, which gives OIt. sponsaglia
(with introduction of Latinizing -n-), Fr. épousailles, Prov. esposalhas, Cat.
esposalles, Sp. desposajas and old learned esponsalias, Leon. esposayas, OPtg.
learned esponsalias. (I also incline to referring the words for ‘sheep’, ‘ewe’ to *OVĬLIA
‘sheep in groups’, used like ANIMALIA, for a single animal. rather than to the
conventional OVICULA, so as to include Rum. oaie; the forms found elsewhere are OIt.
oveglia, Fr. oeille > ouaille, Prov. ovelha, Cat. ovella, Sp. oveja (Arag. güella), Ptg.
ovelha; the chief support for my hypothesis comes from the absence in Italian of any
*ovecchia.)
e) Other words in -ALIA, -ILIA have left no traces in Rumanian, and so
may be of later adoption or creation. One of those with a wide distribution is
MIRABILIA ‘marvels’ (feminine singular in late Latin), where the modern
reflexes nearly all have e or a in the first syllable, rather than the expected i (a
notable exception is Eng. müraveglia, and I have found one example of
miraveglia from Bologna in Monaci, mirabilla in MS. A of Berceo’s Milagros,
and a modern Limousin verb miravilha quoted by Mistral). The forms
concerned are: standard Italian meraviglia, also maraviglia and old meraveglia,
maraveglia and meraveia (NIt.), Surs. marveglia, Eng. müraveglia/müravaglia,
Fr. merveille (also occasional old marveille), Prov. meravelha, meravilha (also
-lh and modern forms with mara-), Cat. meravella, also old maravella, Sp.
maravilla, old (esp. Berceo) maravella, Leon. maraviia, meraviia in Alex. O,
also maraveia quoted by Pellegrini, Ptg. maravilha, Sard. (Log.) meravidza,
(Camp.) meravilla, merevilla. Can we suppose a common form *MĬRABĬLIA,
with attraction of the first vowel to the second (here the Battisti and Alessio
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