Re: Pequeno (was Re: Pilovese in the Romance Language Family)

Scotto Hlad wrote:
> Well the reason I went with that rendering for "pichinh" is that I wasn't
> able to find a basis to move "kk" to "qu"
Does that refer to spelling or to pronunciation? If spelling, then that
is _not_ what I was commenting upon.

What I was referring to is that Pilovese "pichinh" [pik."inj], with its
bas [pik] seems to me closer to Italian _piccolo_ /'pikkolo/, than it
does to the French/Occitan/Catalan _petit_ or to the Iberian forms which
begin with /pek/. It was just an observation, that's all, *it was _not_
meant as a criticism*.

It is immaterial whether spelled /pik'inj/ as _piquinh_ or as _pichinh_.
  The point is that the base is /pik/.

> In Pilovese "c" before an "e" or
> an "i" softens to /ts/ rather than /s/ or /tS/  in order to preserve the
> hard sound I put an "h" after it. (The same rule applied to "g")
As in Italian and Romanian - yes, I was aware of that.

> I'm not
> sure if this qualifies as palatalization or not.
It does not. Palatalization refers to _pronunciation_ which may or may
not be shown in the spelling. If Pilovese had *picinh /pitsinj/, then
that would been as a result of earlier palatalization.

> The "nh" is like "nh" inPortuguese or Occitan.
I know.

> I could have rendered it as piquinh as well so to my
> under-educated eye it does not seem to be close to "piccolino" but to
> pequeno.
That's not what I meant - see above. I emphasize that:
(a) I was referring solely to the pronunciation - the spelling is not
relevant in that context.
(b) I was making what I thought was an objective observation. There was
_no_ critical intent in what I wrote.

However, in view of Italian _piccino_ /pitSSino/, I did wonder why
Pilovese had not behaved in a similar way, i.e. why Pilovese had kept
/k/ before the suffix _inh_, that's all. It was not meant as criticism.
I was just wondering why.

[snip]

> Perhaps you could show me in a comparative way how Sardinian is unaffected
> by palatalization?
What I mean is that whereas in all other Romance languages a Latin /k/
before a front vowel became either /tS/ or /ts/ (the latter later
simplifying to /s/ or /T/ in many areas), the main Sardinian dialect
preserved the original sound so that, e.g. 100 is /kentu/.

But you remark above - "In Pilovese "c" before an "e" or an "i" softens
to /ts/ rather than /s/ or /tS/" - shows that Sardinian is not relevant
to the discussion. You have stated clearly that VL /k/ before a front
vowel becomes /ts/, as it did in Old French and in early Iberian
Romance. I just wondered why _pichinh_ is an exception, that's all.

But I will not know your answer for a while. I'm going off-list today as
I shall be away in Egypt for a couple of weeks.

>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Constructed Languages List [mailto:CONLANG@listserv.brown.edu] On
> Behalf Of R A Brown
> Sent: Sunday, April 06, 2008 6:59 AM
> To: CONLANG@listserv.brown.edu
> Subject: Re: Pequeno (was Re: Pilovese in the Romance Language Family)
>
> <snip>
>
> Possibly - tho that would presumably put Pilovese closer to Italian
> 'piccolino' - there must, presumably, be some reason for Pilovese keeping
> /k/ before a front vowel (Or is it, like Sardininan, unaffected by
> palatalization of the rest of the Romancelangs?)
--
Ray
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Frustra fit per plura quod potest
fieri per pauciora.
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