Re: L1 learning question

Pablo Flores wrote:
> IIRC these verbs had long /o:/ in Latin, which was diphthongized in
> Spanish as /we/ when stressed, and shortened to /o/ otherwise. It
> might be that most present tense forms take the irregular inflection,
> so the child is exposed to them all the time.
You're a little off.  Those verbs in Latin had a *short* /o/.  In early
Vular Latin, the long/short distinction was lost, and a new tense/lax
distinction was formed.
/a/ and /a:/ fused
/i/ --> /I/
/i:/ --> /i/
/u/ --> /U/
/u:/ --> /u
/e/ --> /E/
/e:/ --> /e/
/o/ --> /O/
/o:/ --> /o/

Later, /I/ --> /e/ and /U/ --> /o/ (hence the modern masculine ending
-o, from -u < -um)

So, in Old Spanish, there were seven vowels, /i/, /e/, /E/, /a/, /O/,
/o/, and /u/ (as in modern Portuguese and Italian).  Stressed /E/ and
/O/ regularly became /je/ and /wo/ (which then beceame /we/).  So, a
verb like /pOder/ was easily predictable as /pwedo/ in the 1st Sing.
Later, unstressed /E/ and /O/ became /e/ and /o/.

I suppose that since these "irregularities" occur in the present tense,
they are heard often enough for children to recognize the pattern.  So,
I suppose they can't really be called "irregular".

I've been thinking for a while that it could be argued that Spanish has
*10* verb conjugations.  Regular -ar, -er, and -ir, and seven classes of
stem-changing verbs (-e-ar (as in pEnsAR), -e-er (pErdER), -o-ar
(acOstAR), -o-er (mOvER), -e-ir I (sEntIR), -o-ir (mOrIR), and -e-ir II
(pEdIR)).  On the other extreme, since -er and -ir verbs are so similar,
you could argue that there's really only two main conjugations, with -ir
as a subtype of -er.

> "querer" -> "yo quiero, nosotros queremos" sometimes *"yo quero"
Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't this common in informal adult speach
as well?  I'm pretty sure I've read of such analogies in at least *some*
dialects of Spanish.  Perhaps this is more likely to occur that *moro,
because the change from quiero --> quero merely envolves dropping a /j/,
while muero --> moro involves dropping a /w/ *and* changing the vowel to
/o/.

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