Re: Adjectives, Particles, and This ( etc ), and Conjunctions...

At 11:53 am +0100 17/1/01, Pavel A. da Mek wrote:
[snip - many of the snipped points have been answered by others]
>
>BTW, how it should be from etymologic point of view? We have these pronouns
>and articles:
[snip]
>- Latin _is_, Espan. eso
Incorrect - Spanish 'eso', Port. 'iso' & Itallian 'esso' etc are from Latin
_ipse_, which in western Vulgar Latin became /esse/.

In Vulgar Latin _ipse_ came to mean 'this'/'that' in an unemphatc way,
rather like the modern French ce, cette etc.  In some earlier Romance langs
forms derived from _ipse_ competed with those derived from _ille_ to
function as the definite article and/or 3rd person pronouns.

>- Latin _iste_, Espan. esto
Correct - in VL _iste_ /este/ came to mean 'this'.

>- Latin _ille_, It. lo, Espan. lo, ello, Fr. le
>- Arab. al-
>- Espan. aquel,
But Spanish 'aquel' is from 'accu ille'.

In VL it was clearly customary to reinforce demonstratives with the local
form of "behold" (Classical Latin _ecce_).  In Italy it was (and is
_ecco_), so _questo_ <-- ecco esto, quello <-- ecco ello etc.
In the Iberian peninsular it was _accu_ (possibly a contamination of
Classical _atque_ and _eccu(m)_), so _aquel_ <-- VL accu ille; and....

>- French _ce_, _cette_ etc
...from VL ecce iste.
In Old French this was:
                     Masc.       Fem.                 Neuter
Sing.  nominative:   icist       iceste                icest
          oblique:   icistui/    icesti/               icest
                      icest      iceste

Plur.  nominative:   icist       icestes > icez
          oblique:   icez        icestes > icez

Note: z was pronounced [ts], as was the 'soft c'.

The initial i- was commonly dropped from the earliest Old French period.
The modern _cette_ if from _(i)ceste_ with the normal late medieval loss of
postvocalic /s/.  The modern _ce_ is likewise derived from _(i)cest_ with
the quite normal loss of post-vocalc /s/ and word final /t/.

During the 13th cent. affricates /tS/ and /dZ/ (preserved in Norman French
borrowings) and /ts/ gave way to the familar modern French /S/, /Z/ and
/s/, hence _(i)cez --> ces, and continues to be thus spelled even tho the
final -s is normally silent.

Old French also had another set of demonstratives derived from Latin _ecce
ille_, thus:
                     Masc.           Fem.          Neuter
Sing.  nominative:   icil            icele          icel
          oblique:   icelui/         iceli/         icel
                      icel           icele

Plur.  nominative:   icil            iceles
          oblique:   icels > iceus   iceles

These live on in modern French as: celui, celle, ceux, celles.

Ray.



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