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

You may have noticed that I avoided stating a personal opinion, but I
actually believe there must have been a root *pik- in some substrate
language **in Italy** which got picked up into Vulgar Latin in two
different dialect forms */pikkin/ and */pik;k;in/, plus possibly an
unsuffixed form */pikk/ which then spread across the empire with VL
itself. Both /i/s of the substrate form could apparently be perceived
either long or short by Latin speakers. In Italian a change of suffix,
or the addition of a Latin suffix on the unsuffixed form gave PICCULU.
The identity of the substrate language is anybody's guess, as several
non-Indo-European languages were spoken in Italy prior to Roman
expansion. I'd bet on Etruscan, but I have no evidence for that hunch,
other than it's being the most important of those languages to Roman
history.

2008/4/3, Haggen Kennedy <haggenkennedy@...>:
> 	Hi. :)
>
> Scotto Hlad wrote:
> > So then pequeno and poco come from the same root?
>
> 	Er... actually no, I don't believe it does. :/ See below.
>
>
> > Pequeno is derived from pitzinus.
>
> 	I don't know in Spanish. In Portuguese, "pouco" comes from Latin
> "paucus"; and "pequeno" is usually (there is still a little dissension
> about it) ascribed to some sort of crossover between Vulgar Latin
> "pitinnus" with the root "*pikk-" (present in Italian 'piccolo',
> 'piccino'). If you read Corominas, he'll say that "pequen-" belongs to
> the "la vasta colección de expresiones romances de la idea de pequeñez
> (it. pìccolo, piccìno, fr. petit, sardo pithinnu, gascón pouninn, etc.)
> constituídas todas ellas por una p inicial, seguida, por lo común, de
> vocal aguda, otra oclusiva sorda y en la terminación -innu. En latín
> vulgar se encuentra ya pitinnus, y en las formas hispánicas esta
> variante se presenta combinada con la consoante interna del tipo
> piccolo." (translating: pequen- belongs to the wide collection of
> romance expressions of littleness (it. pìccolo, piccìno, fr. petit,
> sardo pithinnu, gascón pouninn, etc.), constituted, all of them, of an
> initial P, usually followed by an acute vowel, of another unvoiced
> occlusive and of the ending -innu. In Vulgar Latin, there already exists
> [the word] pitinnus, and, in the Hispanic model, this variant presents
> itself combined with the inner consonant of the type "piccolo".)
>
> 	Corominas is Spanish, but what he said is true for Portuguese as well -
> the process he mentioned has existed in Portuguese since the very
> origins of the language, in words like apequenado, empequenecer,
> pequename, pequenete, pequenote etc.
>
>
>
>
> Benct Philip Jonsson wrote:
>  > Meyer-Lübke's "Romanisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch"
>  > rejects a connexion with PAUCUS
>
> 	I personally agree.
>
>
>
>  > Meyer-Lübkes conclusion is that the root of
>  > the Spanish _pequeño_ is unknown.
>
> 	As far as I know, there isn't a consensus yet, although most Romance
> etymologists tend to agree that it comes from the source I mention in
> the beginning of this e-mail. I actually agree with that view myself.
>
> Peace,
> Ken :)
>

--
/ BP

Reply