Re: res nata
| From: | Ray Brown <ray.brown@...> |
|---|
| Date: | Sunday, December 14, 2003, 6:51 |
|---|
On Saturday, December 13, 2003, at 04:05 PM, Costentin Cornomorus wrote:
> --- Ray Brown <ray.brown@...> wrote:
[snip]
>>> Also, what is the source of the
>> Italian/Sicilian
>>> niente/nente
>>
>> Trying had to remember - Is it from *ne ente9m)
>> (not a being)??
>
> Could be.
Better if I'd actually typed *ne ente(m)
> Ens doesn't show up in Classical Latin,
> but does in later writing.
It does show up in the 1st cent CE. Quintilian has the
it; and according to Priscan it was first by Caesar -
which would put it as early as the 1st cent. BCE.
It could have entered colloquial speech. But the 'ne'
is unexplained. The Classical _ne_ (with long 'e') is
'lest' or negative with certain subjunctive constructions.
In any case, if 'ens' is being used as a noun, then we
ought to have _nullum ens_.
And what about the Italian _nessuno_ (no one)? I assume
-essuno <-- ipsu(m) unu(m) - no problem with that. But
where does it the initial n- come from? Is it from
*_non ipsu unu_ which got re-interpreted as
*_no(n) nipsunu_ ?
Must try to make time next week to find out.
>>> and the Romanian nimic?
>>
>> That I would also like to know.
>
> Can't say for sure, but looks like it could be
> from ne mica = not a crumb.
I wondered about _mica_. In early French ne....mie [not a
crumb] was one of the competitors with ne....pas [not a step].
But we know the French _ne_ is a weakened, unstressed derivative
of Vulgar Latin _no(n)_.
The two problems with deriving Romanian _nimic_ from _ne mica_
are:
- Romanian doesn't drop the ending -a (it remains as [@], written
a-breve)
- where does the supposed Vulgar Latin *ne come from?
> Kerno does exactly
> the same thing, except for prepending ne- to its
> negative particles:
>
> Noi n-am v„zut nimic! = Ne couidem nus mick! (We
> didn't see a thing!)
>
> I understand that Romanian is fond of such
> negative constructions,
All the Romance langs are AFAIK.
[snip]
> Alas! There apparently w·s an etymological
> dictionary of Proto-Romanian online; but it seems
> to have disappeared.
Alas, indeed!
Ray
===============================================
http://home.freeuk.com/ray.brown
ray.brown@freeuk.com (home)
raymond.brown@kingston-college.ac.uk (work)
===============================================
Replies