The Latin Neuter Plurals in Romance - Page ON

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2 Vulgar Latin, E. Bourciez’s Éléments de linguistique romane, H. Lausberg’s Romanische Sprachwissenschaft and the like; Lausberg, in particular, goes into great detail when describing the development from the neuter plural, first to a collective feminine singular and then to a singular noun denoting an individual item, as in the case of the names of fruits. What would appear, judging from the title, to be the first definitive work on the subject, W. Meyer(-Lübke)’s youthful work Die Schicksale des lateinischen Neutrums im Romanischen (Halle, 1883), was unfortunately written, as he admits, before he had amassed much material on the subject which concerns me here, though it still contains much valuable information; he had a chance to remedy this, however, in his succeeding works on the subject of Romance philology, such as his Grammatik der romanischen Sprachen and Die lateinische Sprache in den romanischen Ländern (in Gröber’s Grundriss). Other useful information is provided by a work of equal antiquity, E. Appel’s De genere neutro intereunte in lingua latina (Erlangen, 1883), which is a storehouse of examples of late Latin developments. When we come to grammars of the individual languages, good coverage is given by G. Rohlfs, in his Historische Grammatik der italienischen Sprache, to all the instances of the survival and even extension of the Latin neuter plurals as plural forms in Italian, though even he (in §384) gives short shrift to the new feminine singulars. Full attention is also paid, of course, to the “mixed” declension in Rumanian grammars, though even here one may not be aware, without recourse to a dictionary, of the vigour of this type of declension, which accounts, I should say, for a greater percentage of the total number of nouns than the old Latin neuters, embracing, as it does, a large number of loanwords as well as nouns that were masculine or feminine in Latin. Again, grammars of Rhaeto-Romance are bound to note the existence in this language family of collective singulars with plural meaning, derived from the Latin neuter plurals and referring to a number of objects regarded as a single group, alongside new “regular” plural forms which are used when the same objects are considered 2
individually. 3 3 Such treatments adequately represent the situation in the individual languages concerned, but there seems to be a dearth of works treating the developments in Latin and then following this up with a detailed investigation into the subsequent history of each word, or class of words, in each of the Romance languages. These developments pose no particular problems, but to me the very extent of them is fascinating in itself, inasmuch as the Latin neuter declension, so far from being preserved only in Rumanian and Italian (though even here no neuter gender is recognized), left widespread traces also in Western Romance, where the Latin neuter nouns are generally dismissed in the grammars simply as having changed to masculines, apart from a certain number of plural forms such as ARMA, OPERA, FOLIA, which became feminine singulars and in their turn generated new plural forms (OPERA is often quoted as an example, though it is not an ideal one as it was already used as a feminine noun in Latin, whether taken from the neuter plural of OPUS or representing a separate cognate). My purpose, therefore, in this paper is to try and make good this deficiency by tracing the development of the Latin neuter plurals in Romance word by word (as far as my researches have extended), both as regards their preservation as plural forms and in terms of the stages by which they were changed to feminine singulars. In so doing, I am not breaking any new ground, but I hope that by laying a broad panorama before the reader I may help to present a truer picture than is often seen of how widely these neuter plurals are represented in Romance. The plural endings concerned are both -A and -ORA, the latter extracted from words like TEMPORA, CORPORA and used to form the plurals of other nouns; both of these are widely used in Rumanian (in the “double plural” forms -e and -uri), and also in Italian dialects, particularly in the south, and not only in words which were neuter in Latin but also in nouns
Page 1: 1 1 The Latin Neuter Plurals in Rom
Page 5 and 6: 5 5 stages of the language. (Incide
Page 7 and 8: 7 7 preserved in Italian, such as t
Page 9 and 10: 9 9 ‘well’, CAPILLUM ‘hair’
Page 11 and 12: etween the 2nd and 4th declensions)
Page 13 and 14: 13 13 changing their declension in
Page 15 and 16: 15 15 Another popular development w
Page 17 and 18: une formation hybride à cheval sur
Page 19 and 20: 19 19 with acc. pl. LUSTROS, in ins
Page 21 and 22: 21 21 OSSUUM/OSSUORUM/OSSORUM/OSSAR
Page 23 and 24: 23 23 inscription (Bourciez, §218c
Page 25 and 26: 25 25 PRAESTIGIUM, INFAMIUM, BLASPH
Page 27 and 28: 27 27 Ling. Lat., but Nyrop quotes
Page 29 and 30: 29 29 singular in early times), SPI
Page 31 and 32: 31 31 substantia consumitur” (Ita
Page 33 and 34: 33 33 plural (evidence of the early
Page 35 and 36: 35 35 in Chir.) as ‘leaves’? Th
Page 37 and 38: 37 37 loanwords and verbal nouns; i
Page 39 and 40: 39 39 singulars are felt to be the
Page 41 and 42: 41 41 language, producing a situati
Page 43 and 44: 43 43 c) Passing now to French, we
Page 45 and 46: 45 45 separated from braç, as are
Page 47 and 48: 47 47 a modern formation). Old Ital
Page 49 and 50: 49 49 ‘powder horns’, ‘corner
Page 51 and 52: 51 51 also represent Latin -NIA (cf
Page 53 and 54:
53 53 ‘heels’ gives the Rumania
Page 55 and 56:
55 55 böila, Eng. böglia, Surs. b
Page 57 and 58:
57 57 de Dial. Esp., p. 346). But b
Page 59 and 60:
59 59 j) Traces of other old neuter
Page 61 and 62:
61 61 uova, with dial. ove or ovi f
Page 63 and 64:
63 63 ‘kneading-trough’, in the
Page 65 and 66:
65 65 8. Numerals and pronominal ad
Page 67 and 68:
67 67 mil and modern mille (masc.).
Page 69 and 70:
69 69 OFr. nu(l)s, nule, Prov. nuls
Page 71 and 72:
71 71 find the meaning ‘leaf’,
Page 73 and 74:
73 73 in the areas which use -i for
Page 75 and 76:
75 75 c) Let us now look at the sit
Page 77 and 78:
77 77 turn to the dialects to find
Page 79 and 80:
79 79 matching these also ulivo/uli
Page 81 and 82:
81 81 corme), corne (OFr. cornelle)
Page 83 and 84:
83 83 beside cuerno/corgno, prunell
Page 85 and 86:
85 85 cerezal ‘cherry orchard’,
Page 87 and 88:
87 87 ‘holm-oak’ tree, but Arag
Page 89 and 90:
89 89 péšego), with another varie
Page 91 and 92:
91 91 the Piedmontese form la figa
Page 93 and 94:
93 93 assisted by the feminine noun
Page 95 and 96:
95 95 (oak), roveto (bramble), vign
Page 97 and 98:
97 97 r) The position in Catalan is
Page 99 and 100:
99 99 native to the area all right,
Page 101 and 102:
101 101 but the fortuitous similari
Page 103 and 104:
103 103 trufa from French, Ptg. tub
Page 105 and 106:
105 105 Italian plurals in -ora and
Page 107 and 108:
107 107 account for Prov. nos (besi
Page 109 and 110:
109 109 Italian as the Latinism fri
Page 111 and 112:
111 111 Sard. pettorale. PIGNORA is
Page 113 and 114:
113 113 FUNDUS, ARCUS, COLFUS, NODU
Page 115 and 116:
115 115 from a late Greek form kól
Page 117 and 118:
117 117 like cambiora, digiunora, f
Page 119 and 120:
119 119 down by purely popular tran
Page 121 and 122:
121 121 examples I have given above
Page 123 and 124:
123 123 note that -egl- > -agl- is
Page 125 and 126:
125 125 dictionary ascribes the Ita
Page 127 and 128:
127 127 with the same meaning. This
Page 129 and 130:
129 129 ‘brotherhood’, and the
Page 131 and 132:
131 131 Vegl. fyasta (the Rum. fest
Page 133 and 134:
133 133 ‘salary’, and in these
Page 135 and 136:
135 135 legenda, Fr. (learned) lég
Page 137 and 138:
137 137 the widespread forms corres
Page 139 and 140:
139 139 morceau, Engl. bit), It. bo
Page 141 and 142:
141 141 languages the first consona
Page 143 and 144:
143 143 spread to the Iberian Penin
Page 145 and 146:
145 145 Rhaeto-Romance. From VINCUL
Page 147 and 148:
147 147 VISCUM ‘mistletoe’. Fro
Page 149 and 150:
149 149 are also forms without clas
Page 151 and 152:
151 151 also lists Rum. par as “n
Page 153 and 154:
153 153 of ACUS ‘needles’, wher
Page 155 and 156:
155 155 become a singular meaning
Page 157 and 158:
157 157 From LINTEA ‘linen cloths
Page 159 and 160:
159 159 esquírola ‘ditto’. Fro
Page 161 and 162:
161 161 Rum. răza is ‘scrape’,
Page 163 and 164:
163 163 combination of meanings; in
Page 165 and 166:
165 165 has at the same time become
Page 167 and 168:
167 167 üj ‘grape’. Similarly
Page 169 and 170:
169 169 feminines; examples are It.
Page 171 and 172:
171 171 feminine noun which has nei
Page 173 and 174:
173 173 Cat. bolla ‘seal on cloth
Page 175 and 176:
175 175 Lat. VENA. Spanish seems to
Page 177 and 178:
177 177 Heidelberg, 1920; Romanisch
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