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

R A Brown skrev:
> Benct Philip Jonsson wrote:
>
>> theiling@absint.com skrev:
>>
>>> Secondly, and more specifically, what would be the status of final -m
>>> at that time, particularly at the northern border of the Roman Empire?
>>> Would it be feasible for a conlang to assume certain phonological
>>> effects (e.g. lengthening as a side effect of nasalisation) of final
>>> -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).
Yes, I forgot about that exception, although I used it myself in
Slvanjek -- although there Vm# later becomes nasal vowels you
get a difference between QUAM > kú, QUEM > kvjé and QUÁ > ka,
QUAE > kve.

> 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)?
Since Henrik is doing a Romano-Old Norse language, it is probably
most practical to keep the quantitative distinction, which are
analogous to the Germanic state of affairs at the time.  With
Slvanjek and Wenedyk I and Jan decided to go for qualitative
distinctions and ended up pulling our hair quite a lot over that.

> How far had the case system broken down by this time? The accusative &
> ablatives had probably fallen together in popular speech. 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
Germanic usually uses both prepositions and case simultaneously.
I guess merged acc./abl. + preserved gen. and dat. would be the way
to go.  The question is whether abl.pl. would still be like dat.pl.
or merged with acc.pl. as well.

>
> Graffiti at Pompeii would be helpful as it got preserved in the 1st
> century.
Is there any study of the language of latin graffiti?
I did a couple of library searches to no avail.

>>> Further, what would be the status of the adverb?  When did the 'mente'
>>> forms emerge and be used exclusively colloquially to replace the
>>> '-iter' morpheme?
>>
>>
>>
>> No idea.
>
>
> In any case, -iter is not universal in the Classical language. It is
> used only in deriving adverbs from 3rd decl. adjectives - and then not
> always. The 1st & 2nd decl. adjectives use -e to form adverbs. And the
> acc. or abl. neuter of the adj.. was often used adverbially. I suspect
> the spoken language was working towards greater regularization.
>
> But, like Philip, I do not know how much, if at all, the 'mente'
> periphrasis was being used in the 1st cent. IIRC there were other nouns
> besides 'mens' used in this sort of way; after all _simili modo_ occurs
> in the Classical language. I suspect in the 1st cent. there were several
> methods being used and that the regular use of 'mente' was not fully
> established.
I have decided to use _modo_ in Slvanjek. Unterschied muß sein!

> As for what you could read, I don't know off hand. There is very little
> indication from the Classical Latin of that period. But, yes, Sardinian
> is very conservative and would serve as a better model than the more
> well-known Romancelangs which, of course, derive from the VL of the
> later Western Empire.
>
Yes.  There is also the Latin adstrate in Basque, which like
Sard simply merges long and short vowels, without quality
changes or diphthongization.

--
/BP 8^)>
--
Benct Philip Jonsson -- melroch at melroch dot se

    "Maybe" is a strange word.  When mum or dad says it
    it means "yes", but when my big brothers say it it
    means "no"!

                            (Philip Jonsson jr, age 7)

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