User talk:Rua/Archives/2013/May

unui

I should have contacted you before reverting your edit. And I almost did, but in the end I saw no reason why not to revert, and I also deleted what I had written to you.

So, you're saying that Romanian unui comes form a Latin *unui, which in turn comes from some mysterious un- cui. And to back this up you cite a source that you call "Herman (2000), p. 68", without giving any other bibliographical details (title, for instance).

I provided a source that says that Romanian unui derives from Latin unius, which is a real Latin word meaning what its Romanian descendant does, that is, the masculine genitive singular of unus (Romanian un). You deleted my source, possibly in a hurry and without actually noticing it. I looked for the etymology of the Latin unus and found it derives from Old Latin oinos, which in turn presumably comes from PIE *oi-no-, with the same meaning of "one". (That can be verified in several etymological dictionaries to verify that. It's definitely not OR. Let me know if you need a detailed sitation.) So there is no un- cui on the way from PIE up to the Romanian unui.

That's why I said it didn't make sense to derive Romanian unui from an unknown Latin *unui which furthermore is to be derived from a strange un- cui. That [k] sound should have left traces, but hasn't. What does Herman have to say about this? And, if I may, why is Herman so much better than my source that you decided mine just has to be ignored, deleted, and my statement that was based on it declared OR?

Anyway, it would be very helpful if you could give me a quote of what Herman actually says on this matter. The source I provided is available online here, see the table at the top of page 26. The source is in Romanian; if you need anything translated, just let me know. — AdiJapan 04:26, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

The book is called "Vulgar Latin" written by József Herman. The passage is rather long, because it goes into quite some detail about this change:

What is more striking, at least in the eyes of a traditional Latinist, is the appearance in late inscriptions, and especially in texts later than the fifth century, of some analogical formations (which happen to be the first signs of later Romance forms). The forms of ille, iste, and ipse are partly changed by analogy with the forms of the relative qui. Thus the masculine nomina­tive singular is commonly written in texts of the Merovingian period as illi, apparently under the influence of the [-i:] of qui, and the existence of the spoken form [illi:] explains how Old French has both il and li as its masculine singular definite article for the sentence subject. The relative dative singular form, cui, served as the model for the analogical creation of the dative illui (later to become French and Italian lui); the relative genitive singular form, cuius, led to a genitive form illuius.

So what he says is, the dative ending of pronouns was altered by analogy, and the source of the analogy was the form cui. This would include Romanian unui, which is the stem of classical unus with this new dative ending -ui, replacing the older uni. CodeCat (talk) 12:04, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

Thanks. Pointing to an analogy is a lot better than saying that unui derives from un- + cui, which doesn't make sense.

But does Herman say anything specifically about Romanian unui? From what you say I am left with the impression that your claim regarding the ending change in the dative of unus by analogy with cui is your own inference (or, dare I say, original research). Does Herman at least say anywhere that the same analogy affected uni? Also it would be useful to know from which inflectional form of unus --- the genitive or the dative --- Romanian unui (which is both a dative and a genitive) originates.

I'm still not sure why you chose to dismiss a source that puts specifically the origin of Romanian unui in unius, the genitive of unus. — AdiJapan 15:23, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

I am not at all convinced that unui can derive from unius. In particular, where did the final -i come from, and why is there no palatal n? That seems a lot more far-fetched when there is already a perfectly acceptable, and sourced, explanation. The source above shows, in any case, that -ui was adopted as a pronomial dative ending, so that means unui is dative, not genitive. That also matches with all the other dative-genitive forms in Romanian, all of which derive from the dative in the singular, and all of them end in -ui. Occam's razor requires that we go with the simplest explanation, which is that all -ui endings in Romanian must have the same origin. If this were an exception, that exception would need to be accounted for, and sourced. Just saying "this derives from unius because so-and-so says so" doesn't really explain anything, it just leaves me with questions. CodeCat (talk) 15:31, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

Unfortunately, at Wikipedia our job is not to let ourselves convinced or to apply Occam's razor, but to reflect what the sources say. Wikipedia actually is a collection of "so-and-so says so", not of our judgments. I may agree with your original research, and I am quite tempted to, but it still is original research as far as Wikipedia is concerned. — AdiJapan 15:54, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

I realise that, but I am not trying to say what is correct. Only what should be in the article. Sources can say all they like, but what if they conflict? I am reasoning why it makes more sense to follow one source than to follow another. Occam's razor is required for us to decide which is the more reliable source. That's just Wikipedia policy. CodeCat (talk) 16:25, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

	The Barnstar of Diplomacy
	Thanks a lot! If you have any questions about Russian grammar, feel free to send me a message to seugenio@mail.ru. Seu Eliseu (talk) 19:24, 17 May 2013 (UTC)

Proto-Finnic

I did a bit of copy-editing. It looks good although it would probably benefit from some examples, especially in the section on consonant gradation. Also the part on "radical gradation" needs to be explained a bit better (see the clarify note I added). Benwing (talk) 23:07, 30 May 2013 (UTC)