The Latin Neuter Plurals in Romance - Page ON

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8. Numerals and pronominal adjectives. While we are dealing with
measurements, this is a good point at which to speak of the neuter plural forms
of the numerals which were used in Latin, noting in passing that even the word
NUMERUS ‘number’ developed a neuter form, as seen in Rum. pl. numere,
OPerug. nomera (Grundr.). The relevant forms are the old DUA ‘two’,
preserved in the phrase “dua pondo” (see §2c) and later found also in
inscriptions, but condemned as vulgar by the grammarians, TRIA ‘three’ and
MILIA ‘thousands’. In Rumanian DUA fell in with the fem. DUAE, which became
*doue by a development affecting Rum. u before /w/; the oldest extant form is
doauă, still used in Macedo-Rumanian, and other old forms are doaoă/doao,
while the modern form is două. Old Italian and vulgar Tuscan have the form
dua used indiscriminately (e.g. old dua compagni e tria, dua fiada u trea, le
dua novelle; now especially before a pause, so sono dua, ne ho trovato dua);
Rohlfs says this has not developed from Latin DUA but is a proclitic form of
due < DUAE (perhaps also affected by tria/trea) similar to mia, tua, sua, which
developed in the same way from mie, tue, sue. In Rhaeto-Romance the form
dua is used only in conjunction with collective words of measurement, e.g. dua
bratscha, dua pêra (cf. Mil. doa bratsa, doa para, doa fiada, OVen. doa tanta),
and in the numerals Eng. duatschient, duamilli, Surs. duatschien, duamelli, thus
seeming to be genuinely developed out of the old Latin neuter. Meyer-Lübke
gives doue as the Old French form, while Grafström has one single example of
Prov. doa in the phrase doa paira, which corresponds exactly to Rh. dua pêra,
though he also quotes Schultz-Gora as saying that it is similarly used in
combination with milia, and this is corroborated by Suchier. DUA also survives
in Sardinian in the combined numerals Log. dua midza, Camp. dua milla. TRIA
is less well represented. As seen from the above examples, Italian dialects have
tria, trea, used notably with units of measurement, so Barsegape trea via, Rom.