The Latin Neuter Plurals in Romance - Page ON

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has at the same time become used for the individual object; thus Eng. föglia
can mean both ‘leaf’ and ‘foliage’ (fögl means ‘sheet of paper’), and üsaglia
‘tool’ as well as ‘tools’ (here Sursilvan distinguishes between fegl and feglia,
isegl and iseglia).
b) Another development we have met with as we have gone along is
that in which various Latin feminine singulars have been taken to be neuter
plurals and had new “singulars” formed from them. Here I will collect them
together, and add a few other examples. I mentioned early on (§4e) that
PALPEBRA ‘eyelid’ appeared as a neuter PALPEBRUM in late Latin, and this, as
well as other forms like PALPETRA, PALFEBRA, is reflected in the modern
languages. Rumanian only has the fem. pleoapă, but Old Italian has palpebro,
palpiro beside the modern palpebra, and in the north we find such forms as
palpeider beside palpèra (par-), parpella, palpedra. Elsewhere we have Friul.
fems. palpiere, papele, Surs. masc. palpader (-ped-), fem. palpe(b)ra, Eng.
masc. palperi, OFr. masc. paup(i)er, fem. palpere, modern paupière, Prov.
mascs. palpre, palpel(h) (par-), palpet, fems. palpella (par-), palperla,
palpelha (par-), palpiera, Béarn. masc. perpet, fem. perpèro, Cat. mascs.
parpell, pàrpol, pàlpet (pàr-), parpre, fem. parpella (pal-), Sp. mascs. párpalo
(old), párpado, fem. pálpebra, Gal. masc. párparo, fem. pérfeb(r)a, Ptg. masc.
párpado (old), fem. pálpebra, Sard. (Log.) masc. párparo, fem. párpala,
(Camp.) fem. prapedda (the DES says that the Sardinian forms come from
Catalan or Spanish). I also noted in the same section that OIt. orecchia ‘ear’
had been apprehended as a plural, and the present-day form is orecchio, with pl.
orecchi; orecchia is now confined to dialectal use, idioms and figurative
meanings. Another word we looked at in connection with parts of the body was
MATTEA ‘savoury meat dish’, from Greek mattýe, which has given Rum. maŃe,
It. dial. mazza and Sard. matta ‘intestines’; here the Rum. maŃe is a plural, with