Re: Terkunan: rules for deriving nouns, verbs, adjectives
| From: | R A Brown <ray@...> |
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| Date: | Saturday, October 27, 2007, 16:52 |
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Henrik Theiling wrote:
[snip]
I am surprised to find the 4th & 5th declensions surviving, as they did
not survive in Vulgar Latin. This is a really archaic feature.
The 4th declension was simply absorbed into the 2nd, for fairly obvious
reasons. Indeed, those who know their classical Latin will remember that
'domus' (house) couldn't make up its mind which declension it belonged
to even in the formal language. In inscriptions we find confusion quite
a few other nouns and it is clear from all the Romance tongues that the
4th simply didn't hang on in the common language.
The 5th declension had only a handful of nouns in the Classical
language, and even there some forms had 1st declension alternatives,
e.g. materies ~ materia (matter, material), luxuria ~ luxuries
(luxuriance, extravagance). So we find in late Latin 'glacia' and
'facia' for the classical 'glacies' (ice) and 'facies' (form, figure).
This was extended in Vulgar Latin. The modern Spanish & Portuguese _día_
have remained unchanged since Vulgar Latin.
Occasionally, a 5th declension word got absorbed into the 3rd
declension, e.g. 'spes' (hope) developed a Vulgar Latin accusative
'spere(m)' on the analogy of 'flos' ~ 'flore(m)' (flower) and the verb
'sperare' (to hope).
Yes - as you wish to reduce the verbal apparatus to a simplicity found
neither in Latin nor the Romance languages (excepting, of course,
romance based creoles), it's difficult to comment other than to say that
here, in contrast to the conservatism of non-palatalization and the
apparent retaining of the 4th & 5th declensions, the verbs show very
radical reduction of verb forms. It will be interesting to see the
diachronic development here.
My task in many ways is easier in that _no_ fictional diachronic
development is required. It's a fauxlang derived directly from ancient
Greek.
--
Ray
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