The Latin Neuter Plurals in Romance - Page ON

57
57
de Dial. Esp., p. 346). But besides these there was a new plural type CAPORA, as
attested in the Lombard documents, which survives in southern Italian forms
like capura, capure; Rumanian likewise has capuri, which S. Pop (Gram.
Roum.) lists alongside capete, though other sources only give it as the plural of
the French loanword cap ‘cape’. Rumanian also has the masc. pl. capi ‘chiefs’,
corresponding to the standard It. capi and the masculine forms elsewhere, while
southern Italian dialects have turned capo into a feminine, with pl. capo like
mano, aco, fico, as if this word at one stage passed to the 4th declension in
Latin; Rohlfs quotes the CAPUS found in an inscription as evidence for this, but
in fact this form could equally well be the ancestor of the capo–capi or
capo–capora types. For the idea of ‘head’ or related ideas the Romance
languages also make widespread use of the word CAPITIA (*CAPITTIA); it is not
clear whether this is the plural of CAPITIUM ‘headpiece’, ‘head-opening’, but at
least the modern languages in general have parallel forms corresponding to
these two. So we find It. capezza/cavezza ‘halter’ (in Corsica ‘head’) as opposed
to Ven. cavezzo ‘cape’, Eng. chavezza ‘halter’, Eng. chavazza, Surs. cavazza
‘skull’ as against Surs. cavez ‘throat’, OFr. chevece ‘(helmet-)head’ as opposed
to chevez (now chevet) ‘head of a bed’, ‘bolster’, Prov. cabessa ‘head’ as against
cabes ‘bolster’, ‘head-opening’, Cat. cabessa ‘flower-bulb’ as against cabes
‘collar’, Sp. cabeza (OSp. cabeça, Moz. cabessa), Ptg. cabeça ‘head’ as
opposed to cabezo (Moz. cabis), cabeço ‘knoll’, and Sard. (old) capitha, (Log.)
cabitta ‘head’, Camp. cabittsa ‘(end of an) ear of corn’ (Rumanian only has
derivatives like căpăŃână ‘skull’, căpăŃân ‘halter’, formed as Prov.
capsana/causana ‘halter’).
One part of the head with a name which shows a very complicated
development is the ‘temples’. The Latin word was TEMPORA, but the modern
forms are mostly derived from *TEMPULA, which has generally become a
feminine singular; there are also some masculine forms which may or may not