The Latin Neuter Plurals in Romance - Page ON

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‘filings’, Fr. rocaille ‘pebbles’, Occ. roncalho, (Cat. rocall), Sp. rocalla
‘pebbles’, ‘beads’, Ptg. rocalha ‘beads’, Sp. quebraja ‘crack’, Ptg.
quebralhão ‘a bad lot’, Sp. barbajas, Ptg. barbalhos ‘rootlets’.
g) Apart from the forms in -ILIA (with both long and short vowel) that
we have already looked at (including VIRILIA in §6h and ERVILIA in §9w), there
are a number of others to be noted, though in general this formation has been
less productive than -ALIA, and there is always the problem of sorting out which
of the modern forms go back to -ILIA and which to a feminine singular -ICULA.
*IACILIA ‘beds’ gives Prov. jazilha, OCat. jailla, now jeia, and Sp. yacija, to
which we may compare It. giaciglio, evidently newly formed from *giaciglia. A
similar SEDILIA ‘seats’ has given Prov. sezilha (and sezilh), OCat. se(z)illa, OSp.
seija (appearing as seyia in Berceo, S. Dom., 45d), Ptg. silha ‘(base for) a row
of beehives’. Greek CONCHYLIA ‘shellfish’, Latinized as *CONQUILIA, has
yielded It. co(n)chiglia (with Neap. sconciglie direct from the Greek), Fr.
coquille, Prov. cauquilha, now couquiho, Cat. conquilla, Sp. alconcilla (from
Mozarabic); other forms from the Latin singular are Algarve conquilho, Log.
konkidzu, Camp, konkillu. The HWS (§48) quotes two Sardinian forms with
cognates elsewhere. Firstly, we have Log. binkidza < *VINCILIA ‘withy’, ‘bond’
(for which the DCELC gives binzillu as the Campidanian equivalent), which
corresponds to OIt. vinciglia, later vinciglio, Friul. vinseie, Occ. vinciho,
venciho, ‘clematis’, and to the masculine forms Béarn. vensilh, bencilh, Cat.
vencill, Sp. vencejo, Ptg. vincilho (vencelho). The other word is kiskidza ‘dead
twig’from QUISQUILIA, a byform of QUISQUILIAE ‘refuse’ which is the source of
the learned It. quisqui(g)lia ‘trifles’ and Sp. quisquilla ‘quibble’. For Rumanian,
Meyer-Lübke (Schicks.) quotes Macedo-Rumanian forms which preserve the
palatalized l lost in standard Rumanian: kurvaril’e (-ăr-?), frătsil’e, mbugutsil’e.
The first two seem to correspond to curvărie ‘prostitution’ and frăŃie
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