Trace elements
Talk Romance Languages
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1denseatoms
Old French had fragments of Latin decelensions in masculine nouns:
li murs (the wall, subject) || li mur (the walls, subject)
lo mur (the wall, direct object) || les murs (the walls, direct object)
Old Provençal followed the same paradigm:
li jorns (the day), li jorn, lo jorn, los jorns
The modern Surselvan dialect of Romansh preserves this nominative -s for adjective complements of masculine nouns:
Il Bab en tschiel ei buns (The Father in heaven is good).
BUT -- Il bun bap (the good father).
Romanian has combined nominative/accusative and genitive/dative forms of the noun:
o casă (a house, feminine) nom/acc
nişte case (some houses) nom/acc
unei casă (of a house, to a house) gen/dat
unor casei (of some houses, to some houses) gen/dat
There is also Romanian vocative:
Ion (John) -- Ioane! (O, John!)
Maria (Mary) -- Mario! (O, Mary!)
Does anyone of other post-Latin examples?
li murs (the wall, subject) || li mur (the walls, subject)
lo mur (the wall, direct object) || les murs (the walls, direct object)
Old Provençal followed the same paradigm:
li jorns (the day), li jorn, lo jorn, los jorns
The modern Surselvan dialect of Romansh preserves this nominative -s for adjective complements of masculine nouns:
Il Bab en tschiel ei buns (The Father in heaven is good).
BUT -- Il bun bap (the good father).
Romanian has combined nominative/accusative and genitive/dative forms of the noun:
o casă (a house, feminine) nom/acc
nişte case (some houses) nom/acc
unei casă (of a house, to a house) gen/dat
unor casei (of some houses, to some houses) gen/dat
There is also Romanian vocative:
Ion (John) -- Ioane! (O, John!)
Maria (Mary) -- Mario! (O, Mary!)
Does anyone of other post-Latin examples?
2Menarue
In Portuguese when you are calling to someone it is usual to use O before the proper name.
My Portuguese husband when he speaks to one of our daughters called Ana (they revised the spelling of this years back from Anna) always used something that sounded very much like Ohwanna. Even my Portuguese native speaking children have a giggle at this.
My Portuguese husband when he speaks to one of our daughters called Ana (they revised the spelling of this years back from Anna) always used something that sounded very much like Ohwanna. Even my Portuguese native speaking children have a giggle at this.
3kcasada
Speaking of giggles, way back when, Spanish briefly borrowed the Arabic vocative particle "ya" to do the same thing, merrily using it right alongside the Spanish adverb "ya," meaning "already" or "now."
4denseatoms
As in "Ya habibi?" ("Hey, my friend") --

