The Latin Neuter Plurals in Romance - Page ON

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e) Besides all the parallel masculine and feminine forms I have just
listed in this section, we also need to recall the others that have been referred to
elsewhere. Because I have concentrated on giving the reflexes of the old neuter
plurals, I have not always mentioned the fact that the singulars have also
continued in a separate function, but this point needs to be made here before I
come to the final development in Romance. Thus we have seen that
LIGNU/LIGNA and FRUCTU/FRUCTA have come down in contrasting forms
referring to the individual and collective objects respectively, while in other
cases, such as those of BRACCHIU/-A, CORNU/-UA, OVU/-A, CILIU/-A, CAPITIU/-A,
CEREBELLU/-A, RAMU/-A, FOLIU/-A, -ETU/-A, GRANU/-A, HORTU/-A,
VESTIMENTU/-A, PRATU/-A, GRADU/-A, VALLU/-A, VELU/-A, VERBU/-A, LINTEU/-A,
RADIU/-A, CANASTRU/-A, separate singular forms have developed, generally
with distinct meanings related to the difference of number in Latin, though this
is not always the case. In certain cases we can see a distinction in size, thus OFr.
pree < PRATA is wider in expanse than pré < PRATU, and Sp. huerta, Ptg. horta,
Prov. orta, Cat. horta are big gardens, while huerto, hôrto, ort and hort are only
small ones; Prov., Cat., Sp., Ptg. saca and Fr.-Prov. sachi are bigger sacks than
saco, sac, It. coltella, Prov. coutela, OCat. coltella, Sp. cuchilla and Ptg. cutela
refer to knives bigger than those denoted by the corresponding masculine forms,
and the same is true of the various words for ‘basket’ noted above, It. canestra,
Rh. canastra, chana(i)stra, tganastra, Eng. chavagna (-ogna), Cat. cabassa; in
Spanish cuerna means ‘antler’ and cuerno ‘horn’, and a rama is a main bough
while a ramo is only a smaller branch, and equally, in Occitanian, anello
denotes a large ring, as opposed to anèu, which is an ordinary ring, while It.
cucchiaia means ‘ladle’ and cucchiaio ‘spoon’. In the same way, in the case of
the words we have just looked at, the reflexes of CALDARIA and PANARIA
generally denote larger objects than those of CALDARIU and PANARIU. From this
has come the tendency to develop a new Romance masculine noun from a
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