The Latin Neuter Plurals in Romance - Page ON

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substantia consumitur” (Itala), “cum sambuca et omnia stratura sua”, “haec
omnia subscripta rem” (Form. Andec.), “cum terris, domibus...vel omnia
ibidem aspicientem” (Form. Marc.), “cum omnia ris [= res] mea”, “vestimento
meo omnia” (Cod. Dipl. Long.). It may be an invariable neuter plural in
“traditis ei clericis et omnia” (Greg. of Tours).
5. The beginnings of Romance.
a) The situation we have now arrived at is still far from clear-cut, but
certain points are emerging. In the singular we can suppose from the
widespread fluctuation between masculine and neuter that the two genders
were merged into a common form of declension, with -US in the nominative
and -UM in the oblique case (but nouns in -ATICUM appear in early Provençal
texts without a final -s; also an exception has to be made for mass nouns,
which were preserved in the ablative case, this coming from a partitive use, as
*DE ILLO FERRO — see R.A. Hall in Language, Vol. 44). When the
dictionaries and grammars quote a form in -US, I take it that a masculine
singular form is found, whatever the plural may be, as in the case of VINUS,
FENUS, DOLEUS, FROMENTUS, IUDICIUS, LATROCINIUS, ORATORIUS, TELONEUS,
CAELUS, CENUBIUS, found in the texts of Muller & Taylor, and so also
presumably in the case of the INSTRUMENTUS, MONASTERIUS quoted by
Väänänen from the Form. Marc. (in these texts the plurals are sometimes
neuter, as VINA, STRUMENTA, sometimes masculine, as TELONEOS, CAELOS); but
when a noun is listed in the -UM form, to indicate neuter gender, this may in
certain cases, as I see it, only be a grammarian’s way of saying that -A forms
are found in the plural, as in the case of the CIRCLA, CULTELLA, CULTRA, CARRA,
HORTUA, LOCELLA, FLUXA, VOMITA quoted above (a singular form like
“gustum versatile” is not conclusive, as this could simply be a case of -E for