The Latin Neuter Plurals in Romance - Page ON

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tria volta, Ven. trea brazza, Mil. tria bratsa, OLomb. trea milia, or before a
pause, as in 12th-c. cafise de oleu trea, and modern vulgar Tuscan passa’n
giorno, ne passa dua, ne passa trea. In Rhaeto-Romance it only appears in
Engadinian, in the same combinations as dua, so traia bratscha, traiatschient,
traiamilli; Lausberg explains that, as Sursilvan makes use of the bound form of
treis, trei-, it does not need another form, so trei bratscha, treitschien, treimelli.
Provençal makes a similar use of tria, so tria semoia, tria milia (Graf.). The
other surviving form is OFr. troie, used as a noun to mean the ‘trey of a dice’.
To my mind the most notable forms here are the Prov. doa, tria, showing that
the W. Romance use of these neuter forms was not confined to
Rhaeto-Romance.
The position with regard to MILIA ‘thousands’ is more complicated. It
has developed popularly in three ways, firstly as a plural, secondly as a new
singular, and thirdly as a noun meaning ‘mile(s)’ (from (TRIA) MILIA PASSUUM
‘(three) thousand Roman paces’, a pace being five Roman feet); then it has also
been borrowed into the Romance languages in its original meaning. As a plural
for ‘thousands’ it appears in ORum. mie (Laus., §780), which is now a singular
with a new pl. mii, and in Sard. (Log.) midza, (Camp.) milla, so dua
midza/milla; but in Campidanian one can also say duos millas. In the sense of
‘mile’ it appears as a plural in Italian, so tre miglia (with a new sing. miglio;
note also il mille miglia ‘the 1,000-mile motor race’, Mil. mia, and milia used
once by Dante for the rhyme), but otherwise as the sings. Rh. miglia, Friul. mie,
Prov., Ptg. milha, Cat. milla, Log. midza. Here Rumanian has the loanword
milă, and Spanish the semilearned milla (belonging to the same stratum as
other -LIA words like batalla, maravilla); the popular Spanish development is
seen in the derivative mijero ‘milestone’, formerly ‘mile’. For ‘mile’ French
uses the same word as for ‘thousand’, originally mil(i)e (fem.; see below), then
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