The Latin Neuter Plurals in Romance - Page ON

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the widespread forms corresponding to TRA(NS)VERSA probably represent VIA
(TRABS) TRANSVERSA. There has been much dispute over the origin of the
modern feminine forms down the years, and I have turned up two articles
referred to by Grandgent in his Introduction to Vulgar Latin, p. 21, which
reinforce my own views; one is by C. Collin in Archiv für lateinische
Lexicographie und Grammatik, XIII, pp. 453 sqq., and the other by L.H.
Alexander, “Participial Substantives of the -ata type in the Romance
languages” (Columbia University Press, 1912), in which he summarizes
Collin’s conclusions and then gives a comprehensive listing of the French
forms using the -ATA suffix, categorized according to the class of meaning.
Collin, after giving a synopsis of the views of his predecessors, takes up the
point that I have referred to earlier, namely the tendency in late Latin for the
4th-declension deverbals in -TUS, -SUS to be supplanted by the substantivized
neuter forms of the past participles. He points first to a number of participial
neuter nouns found in classical Latin, whose plurals appear in late Latin as
feminine singulars; among them are DEBITA, DICTA, FACTA, MERITA, PECCATA,
PLACITA, PRAECEPTA, PROMISSA, SCRIPTA. He then gives other late Latin
participial feminine nouns with active meanings, corresponding to classical
forms in -TIO, -SIO, and points out that in general the nouns in -IO were literary,
while those in -TUS, -SUS were preferred in popular usage (and were, as we
have seen, subject to replacement by those in -TUM, -SUM, -TA, -SA); these
include ACCESSA (RE-), ASCENSA, CENSA, COLLECTA (only found in classical
Latin in the sense of PECUNIA COLLECTA or, as a plural, for OPERA COLLECTA),
CONSULTA, DEFENSA (OF-), DEPRENSA, EXPENSA (DIS-, IM-), MISSA, REMISSA
(both as singular and as plural), PUNCTA (‘prick’), TINCTA (‘stroke of the pen’).
Collin gives it as his opinion that in view of the interchange between the -TUS,
-SUS and -TUM, -SUM forms and the tendency for the neuter plurals to become
used as feminine singulars (and he quotes other neuter nouns to back up his
argument) it is most likely that the widespread formation in Romance of