Re: [romconlang] Romlang splitting off ~0-100 CE

Hi!

R A Brown <ray@...> writes:
> Benct Philip Jonsson wrote:
> > theiling@absint.com skrev:
> >...
> >> -m?  Or has -m disappeared completely already without any trace?
> > It would probably be gone already by then.  Not even the Classical
> > poets pronounced it, apparently.
>
> Oh certainly - this is clear from graffiti. The only exception are
> monosyllabic words where, we find, the final nasal survives into the
> Romancelangs, e.g. Fr. rien (<-- rem), Sp.quien (<-- quem).
Ah, ok.  That's something I can work with. :-)

> But there will other problems to decide if one is having a splitting
> off as early as the 1st century BC. In particular, was the older
> quantitative distinction of vowel length still maintained in the
> spoken language, or was it already giving way to the qualitative
> distinctions of later Vulgar Latin (from which the Romance langs
> derive)?
Benct suspects correctly that I had already decided for the older
length distinction system, mainly because it matches Proto-Germanic
quite well.  Only few things need to be fixed (I think there was no
final long -u in Germanic for some unknown reason (to me)).  Further,
as Sardinian started off with this system, it seems justified
historically, too.

> How far had the case system broken down by this time? The accusative
> & ablatives had probably fallen together in popular speech.
Really?  That'd be too bad. :-/

> But were genitives & datives still holding on or had they already
> giving way to periphrastic forms with 'de' and 'a(d)'? The use of
> these (and other periphrases) is attested as early as Plautus
As I want a conservative lang, I will probably keep whatever is
feasible.  Of course, what has collapsed already at the time will be
kept collapsed.

My question about final -m was also aiming in that direction: are
those syllables not counted as heavy (bimoraic) in poetry?  And can I
not deduce that final -m at least lengthened the preceding vowel?  Of
course, common speech is not poetry, but lengthening why also explain
collapse of acc. and abl..  Otherwise (no lengthening by -m),
acc. would have a short vowel while abl. usually would have a long
vowel.  This would give me a change to keep an acc/abl distinction,
since final long vowel vs. final short vowel can introduce hillarious
changes in Germanic. :-)

> Graffiti at Pompeii would be helpful as it got preserved in the 1st
> century.
I've downloaded what I could find on the internet.  Yes, it fits the
time quite well.

And the adverbs seem to be interesting. :-)

**Henrik
--
Relay 13 is online:
http://www.conlang.info/relay13/

Reply