Re: Romance WE
| From: | Doug Dee <amateurlinguist@...> |
|---|
| Date: | Thursday, January 1, 2004, 18:41 |
|---|
In a message dated 1/1/2004 1:26:00 PM Eastern Standard Time,
carrajena@YAHOO.COM writes:
>...>I've decided I'm not completely satisfied with the C-a
>words for we. Currently they are
>...>nos (m.)
>nosa (f.)
>...>I've been looking at my dictionaries and not that many
>of them don't list feminine forms for this word. Is
>this an omission (because of regular derivation) or is
>Spanish just odd?
I have always assumed Spanish was just odd: Latin did not make a gender
distinction for "we," and (I remember from school) French does not. A quick check
of a handy book* indicates that Rumanian, Portuguese and Catalan do not either.
I seem to recall that the Spanish Nosotros/as is historically a compound of
"nos" + another word ("others"?). The other word was gender marked, and in
other Romance languages that did not form this compound, there was no reason for
"we" to acquire gender-specific forms.
*The Romance Languages by Harris & Vincent.
Doug
Reply