POR PAUPERE and PAVORE in Rhodrese

Cher compen e compí,

I have some problems with the reflexes of *POR 'for, by'
PAUPERE 'poor' and PAVORE 'fear' in Rhodrese. The regular
stressed development of all three would be _paur_, and in
addition the contraction of *POR with the definite article
would be _paul_, _paull_ before vowels, homonymous with
PAULU!

PAUPERE will have to stay _paur_, since _paubre_ looks
somehow un-Rhodrese :-). A back vowel other than U| + P/B/V
(+ unstressed vowel) + consonant always becomes _au_ +
consonant in Rhodrese, although R as the consonant may be a
candidate for special treatment, since many other cases of
R, like consonant + final RU/RE and RJ do get special
treatment, e.g. -ARIU > _-ere_ -- heaven knows if it becomes
_-er_ or _-ir_ in the plural, though it probably is _-ir_ at
least in modern Rhodrese!

The obvious solution for *POR is to use the unstressed form,
although I don't like _por_. I'm not quite sure why I
dislike it, just a vague feeling that many expressions get
more similar to Castilian than what fits Rhodrese. I'm
actually leaning towards _par_ like in French, since the
Latin PARE will become _piar_ anyway, or even PARIA >
_per(i)e_!

As for PAVORE I found an Italian _spavento_, but I'm not
entirely happy with _((d)es)pavent_ or _((d)es)pavence_ --
Italian has a verb _paventare_ too. Italian and French have
transformed the word into a feminine _paura, paure_, but
even so the Rhodrese plural _peur_ would fall together with
that of PAUPERE. Old Provençal had two forms _paur_ and
_paor_ -- both disyllabic I guess, as OP is non-
diphthongizing! To go real strictly by the rules PAVO|RE
would become _pavaur_ in Rhodrese, but obviously all Romance
natlangs have lost the Latin V, however i find _pahaur_
unlikely and _pauaur_ both unlikely and ugly. OTOH an Old
Rhodrese _paour_, or even a pre-Rhodrese /pa'o:r/ might
become/stay _paor_ /pa'(w)or/.

What do ye all think? I *know* that real languages don't
take measures to avoid mergers, but only clear up the mess
afterwards, so what may come in to replace one or more of
these forms once they have merged?

TIMORE > _temaur_, obviously, or FORMIDINE >
_fromidre/formilne_ -- I like _fromidre_ although according
to Meyer-Lübke Old Spanish _formiguero_ 'fearful' is the
only attested reflex in actual Romance.

IEIUNU > _jaijú/jaijune/jaijéú_, IMPROBUS > _empre_?  I like
_paur zaul_ for 'poor devil' however! Perhaps this item is
preserved because it could also be *POR DIABULU?
Drat, stressed *POR ain't likely at all, really! ;-(

/Bendetx

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