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

From:Raymond Brown <ray.brown@...>
Date:Wednesday, January 17, 2001, 20:10
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. ========================================= A mind which thinks at its own expense will always interfere with language. [J.G. Hamann 1760] =========================================