Features
Rhaeto-Romance is distinguished by a number of features which separate it from its neighbors.
- diphthongization of Vulgar Latin open e into ei, closed e into ie
- Latin pede → Rom. (Surselvan) pei "foot", Lad pl. piesc "feet"
- Latin festa → Rom. (Surselvan) fiasta, Friul fieste "party, feast"
- occasional change of stressed a to e, particularly after a palatalized velar
- fronting of long ū in all stages ui → ü → i
- Latin plūs "more" → Friul plui : Lad plü, Rom (Engadine) plü : Rom (other dialects) pli
- loss of final vowels except -a, which often weakens to -e (in Friulian there is also a feminine plural in -is)
- Rom. saira, Lad sëra, Friul sere "evening"
- Rom. festa, Lad festa, Friul fieste "party"
- Friul pie, pia (pious, f.) "press"
- general palatalization of the ca and ga groups
- Lad ciampana, Friul čhampane "bell"
- preserved cl-, pl-, fl-; preserved Germanic w
- Latin clāvem → Rom clav/clev, Lad (Fascian, Fodom) kle(f), Friul clâv "key"
- Lat plēbs → Rom plaiv "parish", Lad plief "parish", Friul plêv "parish church"
- Lat flātus → Rom flad, Lad fle, fla, Friul flât "breath"
- Gothic werra → Rom (Surselvan) uiara, (Sutselvan) veara, Lad vera, Friul vuere "war"
- voicing of intervocalic unvoiced consonants
- loss of intervocalic voiced consonants
- preserved final -s leading to a single case based on an obsolete oblique which combined different endings from non-nominative cases; formerly a double case system.
- Rom sunàis "you ring" (< sonās)
- Rom culinis "hills" (< *collinīs, dative)
- Rom bels ölgs "beautiful eyes" (< *bellos oculos, accusative)
Read more about this topic: Rhaeto-Romance Languages
Famous quotes containing the word features:
“It is a tribute to the peculiar horror of contemporary life that it makes the worst features of earlier times—the stupefaction of the masses, the obsessed and driven lives of the bourgeoisie—seem attractive by comparison.”
—Christopher Lasch (b. 1932)
“All visible objects, man, are but as pasteboard masks. But in each event—in the living act, the undoubted deed—there, some unknown but still reasoning thing puts forth the mouldings of its features from behind the unreasoning mask. If man will strike, strike through the mask!”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)
““It looks as if
Some pallid thing had squashed its features flat
And its eyes shut with overeagerness
To see what people found so interesting
In one another, and had gone to sleep
Of its own stupid lack of understanding,
Or broken its white neck of mushroom stuff
Short off, and died against the windowpane.””
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)