Re: Some questions about Romance langs

On Sun, May 20, 2001 at 7:41:20PM -0400, Oskar Gudlaugsson wrote:
> What is the origin of Spanish "como"/Fr "comme", etc? In desperation, I
> might answer Latin "quo modo", but I'm all but certain that I'm wrong. I'm
> totally stumped :p
[see below]

> Also, I suppose French "autre" comes from Latin "alter/altra/altrum"
> (correct forms, right?); Spanish "otro/otra", however, would supposedly be
> from "uter/utra/utrum", then? Or is that an isolated case of l-vocalization
> in Spanish?
The same l vocalization happened in Spanish, in those words as well as some
others, such as <cauce> < <CALCE>. I don't know offhand, but I don't think that
process was very widespread in Spanish.

> Speaking of which, why on earth did that Latin velarized-l only vocalize to
> [w]/[u] in French, and not in at least half the Romance languages?
> Typologically normal, or bizarre (as I'm finding it)? Did it vocalize in
> Romanian, btw?
As I said, it also happened a bit in Spanish, and also Portuguese (<outro>),
and probably others too. OTOH, in some langs/dialects the /l/ just dropped
out, leaving forms such as <nuzatrus> < <NOS ALTEROS> (I can't remember what
that's from, but I believe it was Catalan or something closely related).

I don't know about the typology, but it doesn't seem an unlikely change to
me. It's happened in various English dialects and Polish, at least.

ObConlang: I still can't decide what to do with syllable-final /l/ in
Lainesco, my Romance conlang. I'm not all that fond of /u/ diphthongs, but
on the other hand I think it sounds awkward to leave the /l/s in. On yet
another hand, Spanish and Portuguese at least had certain environments where
it actually became /i/ (e.g. Sp. <mucho>, Pt. <muito> < <MULTUM>), so I
might just extend that in Lainesco to be the main mode of l vocalization.
(Actually, it might be a little moot, since diphthongs ending in /u/ tend to
change that to /i/ anyway in Lainesco!)

On Mon, May 21, 2001 at 12:27:49AM -0400, Oskar Gudlaugsson wrote:
> Also: in reading Latin, I would tend to put more stress on the "modo"
> in "quo modo". The development to "como/comme" would indicate stress on the
> original "quo", however (otherwise we might have Sp "comó" and
> French ..er.. "quemeu" (? :p) at our hands). Anybody find that the least
> bit strange?
Not to me. I'm told that that accentuation came from its use as a set
phrase, therefore phonologically a single word (Actually, I just checked my
dictionary and it's listed as <quo:modo>, with no space). As you know, the
accent on words with a light penultimate (short vowel, vowel-final) syllable
falls on the ante-penult, thus /"k_wo:modo/. What puzzles me is why the
middle syllable didn't just drop, leaving */"k_wo:mdo/.

--
Eric Christopherson / *Aiworegs Ghristobhorosyo