Re: POR PAUPERE and PAVORE in Rhodrese

Benct Philip Jonsson wrote:
> Cher compen e compí,
>
> I have some problems with the reflexes of *POR 'for, by'
> PAUPERE 'poor' and PAVORE 'fear' in Rhodrese. The regular
[snip]

> PAUPERE will have to stay _paur_,
OK

[snip]
>
> The obvious solution for *POR is to use the unstressed form,
It certainly is. If the French preposition had developed from a stressed
*POR, then we would have _peur_ in modern French, i.e. it would be
homophonous with _peur_ <-- pauore(m) "fear"!

But French _pour_ is the regular development from unstressed *POR. In
any case, prepositions are normally unstressed, aren't they?

> 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,
_par_ is *not* the French derivative from *POR; it is _pour_, see above.
_par_ is derived from Latin (both Classical and Vulgar) PER, where /E/
became /a/ under the influence of the following /r/ - cf _marché <--
mercatu(m).

>
> 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_,
Italian, yes - but the last time I looked (a few seconds ago), the
French was still _peur_ (with _no_ final -e). But it is feminine; but so
are _all_ abstracts in -eur derived from Latin -ore(m). The change seems
to have happened in the VL of Gaul, thus pre-dating French. It is
thought the the gender change was simply because most other types of
abstract nouns were feminine, so the -ore(m) abstracts just joined them.

The Italian form, however, is anomalous.

[snip]
> 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?
The 4th decl. Latin _metus_ /me:tus/ "fear" (VL *meto) survived in the
Iberian peninsular, where we have Spanish _miedo_ and Portuguese _medo_.
  Is this possible for Rhodrese?

> 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.
I think M-L is probably correct.

> 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! ;-(
No, it ain't - see above.

--
Ray
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http://www.carolandray.plus.com
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Nid rhy hen neb i ddysgu.
There's none too old to learn.
[WELSH PROVERB}

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