Path: ...!weretis.net!feeder8.news.weretis.net!news.szaf.org!inka.de!mips.inka.de!.POSTED.localhost!not-for-mail From: Christian Weisgerber Newsgroups: alt.usage.english,sci.lang Subject: Re: Somewheres Date: Mon, 2 Sep 2024 19:48:13 -0000 (UTC) Message-ID: References: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Injection-Date: Mon, 2 Sep 2024 19:48:13 -0000 (UTC) Injection-Info: lorvorc.mips.inka.de; posting-host="localhost:::1"; logging-data="15323"; mail-complaints-to="usenet@mips.inka.de" User-Agent: slrn/1.0.3 (FreeBSD) Bytes: 2611 Lines: 34 On 2024-09-02, Peter Moylan wrote: > Some southern Italian dialects have dropped a few final vowels, but > this does not extend to northern dialects or the mainstream version of > the language. Okay, this opportunity is as good as any to mention something I've been burning to post ever since I re-read it in Akire/Rosen: Have you ever wondered why the third person plural present tense forms of Italian verbs are so strangely stressed, e.g., pàrlano instead of *parlàno? And where is that -o from anyway? Spanish doesn't have it and if you look at Latin (-ant), there's no source for it. Oh, you haven't wondered? ;-) Apparently Old Italian had the expected ending -an, so what happened? The blame goes to the 'to be' word. The Latin first singular "sum" and third plural "sunt" both ended up regularly as "son" in Old Italian. But that was the only first person form that didn't have -o, so eventually it picked one up, producing "sono". Now, since the first singular and third plural had already merged, "sono" also became the third pural. And from there the -o spread to the third plural of all other verbs, but as a latecomer it didn't move the stress. It's an intriguing explanation, especially since it includes two developments that ran in opposite directions: First the addition of -o from many forms to one, then the spread of -o from one form to many. I would guess the strong overall tendency toward open syllables in Italian had something to do with it. -- Christian "naddy" Weisgerber naddy@mips.inka.de