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

On Apr 3, 2008, at 1:57 PM, Benct Philip Jonsson wrote:
> 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.
I think it's possible that the variation tt ~ kk ~ kk; ~ ts might
have come from "childish" pronunciations of the word; Grandgent's
_Introduction to Vulgar Latin_ has the same hypothesis to the
variation -iclus ~ -ittus ~ -iccus. The semantics of those forms
would seem to make them apt to be said in baby talk.

(I remember that one time I had the same hyphothesis about the
English words little ~ lickle ~ ickle, and looked up their
etymologies, but now I can't find them... so I don't know if they are
relevant.)

> 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

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