The Latin Neuter Plurals in Romance - Page ON

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similarly NCalab. stillu, while a distinction in size underlies Cat. estel/dial.
estrel beside estrella/OCat. estela, rarely estella, and Sard. isteddu as against
istedda. From SPINULA ‘little thorn’, later ‘pin’, It. spillo ‘pin’ beside spilla
‘brooch’, ‘tie-pin’ has a parallel in Camp. spindulu. Some formations are purely
Italian, thus campano ‘cow-bell’ beside campana ‘bell’, buco ‘small hole’
beside buca ‘hole’, pezzo ‘piece’, ‘fragment’ with a different range of meaning
from pezza (perhaps fulfilling the function of Sp. pedazo, Ptg. pedaço, which
have no counterpart in standard Italian but only in southern forms like Calab.,
Sic. pit(t)azzu, Neap. pətaccia), masso ‘boulder’, specialized from massa ‘mass
(of rock)’ in a unitary sense, mestolo ‘wooden cooking-spoon’, smaller than
mestola ‘ladle’, ragno ‘spider’, created because ragna has come to mean
‘spider’s web’, scalo ‘port of call’, differentiated from scala ‘stair’, ‘ladder’,
where Spanish and Portuguese use escala for both, gambo ‘stalk’, ‘shank’
beside gamba ‘leg’; for other formations see Rohlfs, §386. Certain words for
‘rock’, Fr. roc, roche, Prov., Cat. roc, roca (differentiated into unitary and
collective in Catalan), of unknown derivation, are said to have originated in this
Gallo-Romance region and spread out from there, giving It. rocca (also found
in Logudorian), roccia, Sp. roca, Ptg. roca, rocha. Spanish and Portuguese have
in common bolso ‘purse’, bôlso ‘pocket’ beside bolsa, bôlsa ‘purse’, from late
Latin BURSA, taken from Greek býrsa ‘leather bag’; here Sursilvan has the
corresponding pairs buors ‘shoulder-bag’, buorsa ‘purse’. Similarly Spanish
and Portuguese have mosco, môsco ‘mosquito’ formed from mosca, môsca ‘fly’,
Latin MUSCA. Again, the two languages have zapato, sapato ‘shoe’ from zapata,
sapata ‘laced boot’, corresponding to It. ciabatta ‘mule (slipper)’, ‘old shoe’, Fr.
savate, Occ. sabato ‘ditto’, Cat. sabata ‘shoe’, from Turkish çabata ‘kind of
shoe’ (cf. Rum. ciobotă); other masculine forms are Trent. ciavat ‘toad’ and
Surs. tschavat, Eng. tschavatt ‘bungler’, ‘sloven’ (corresponding to It.
ciabattone) beside Eng. tschavatta ‘mule (slipper)’. Portuguese is alone in
having veio ‘vein (of ore, in marble)’, ‘grain in wood’, created from veia ‘vein’,
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