# Romance imperfect: temeva/temeba/temea ...



## francisgranada

Hello!

In some Romance languages, both in the Iberian and the Italian peninsula, the consonant _b _(~_v_) is maintained in imperfect in all the conjugations, in other Romance languages only in the 1st conjugation (in _-are_). Examples: _amaba/amava, temeba/temeva/temea/temía, veniba/veniva/venía._ In standard Italian the consonant _-v-_ is regularly present in all verbs, however in older literature (including Dante!) we find forms like _temea_, _venia, etc ...
_
My question is, if the today's standard forms (_temeva/veniva_) are the result of some kind of "re-introduction of the more original forms" or not? If not, then what is the explanation of the fact that the modern Italian forms are closer to Latin than the archaic ones?

What are the endings of _imperfetto _in the actual Tuscan dialects?

Thanks in advance.


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## bearded

Hello
My surmise:  the older forms without v were due to influence from other dialects (mainly Sicilian or anyway southern) before the language was unified.  They still exist in some dialects and in Italian poetic register.  After Tuscan prevailed and was adopted as standard, Tuscan forms with v became 'official'. Tuscan retains the v in the imperfect.


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## Riverplatense

Hi,
I have a slightly different suggestion. Couldn't the forms _-ava/-eva/-iva_ be «morphological latinisms», as also francisgranada supposed? I think that in modern Tuscan dialects there's no _-v-_, neither, cf. here.


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## Riverplatense

I have just consulted Bec (_Manuel Pratique de Philologie Romane_ _I_, p. 95 s.), who states that the endings _-ea/-ia_ were introduced in vulgar Latin in the forms HABEBAM → *_abea_, DEBEBAM → *_debea_, as a result of a dissimilation. These results would have become the base for generalized imperfect forms like _avea_, _devea _etc. So it would not just be a case of intervocalic lenisation, the more so as -ABA(T) is not affected. 

As the syncretism to the i-paradigma is concerned (_avia _etc.), Bec talks about sicilianisms, like bearded man did. In Sicilian, indeed, the imperfect endings of the _-ere_ forms gives the same results as in Spanish.


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## bearded

@ Riverplatense
I agree with the content of your post #4 concerning dissimilation of b/v in verbs like _habebam,debebam._ In most other verbs, in Tuscany the v still exists. Even in your link - if you listen carefully - at least two of the dialect speakers pronounce _avea, _but _chiedeva._


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## Nino83

bearded man said:


> he older forms without v were due to influence from other dialects (*mainly Sicilian* or anyway southern) before the language was unified.  They still exist in some dialects and in Italian poetic register.  After Tuscan prevailed and was adopted as standard, Tuscan forms with v became 'official'. Tuscan retains the v in the imperfect.



This is true for the present conditional.



> Unico tra i dialetti italiani, *il siciliano* ha avuto la ventura di lasciare *un'impronta nella lingua poetica nazionale*, grazie all'antico primato dei poeti siciliani. Come si è già detto nel cap. III, § 3.2 e nel cap. IV, § 13.7, originari *sicilianismi* mantenutisi a lungo in poesia sono forme senza dittongo come loca, novo, more, sòle 'suole' *o il condizionale in -ia* (avria 'avrebbe').



_Lineamenti di grammatica storica dell'Italiano_ p. 186 "Il siciliano antico"



Riverplatense said:


> As the syncretism to the i-paradigma is concerned (_avia _etc.), Bec talks about sicilianisms, like bearded man did. In Sicilian, indeed, the imperfect endings of the _-ere_ forms gives the same results as in Spanish.



This because in Sicilian language closed /é/ and /ó/ are raised to /i/ and /u/, so _av*é*a > av*ì*a _and_ t*e*n*é*a > t*i*n*ì*a_.

So it is explained the conditional _avr*ì*a_, which in Tuscan would have been _avr*é*a_.

About imperfect, it is said that:



> Forme arcaiche dell’imperfetto indicativo della seconda e terza coniugazione. Le desinenze originarie ... non presentavano la labiodentale, in continuazione di *forme già latino-volgari (*HABEAM, *BIBEAM* in luogo di HABEBAM, BIBEBAM); i tipi temeva e sentiva - diffusisi già in epoca antica sul modello della prima coniugazione dove il v era stabile (amava) - si sono imposti definitivamente solo in età moderna, dal momento che ancora nella prosa ottocentesca era molto diffuso l’imperfetto in -ea, -ia....».



Luca Serianni, Grammatica italiana, Italiano comune e lingua letteraria. UTET Torino 1988 cap. XI n. 72 

In  Neapolitan , with the type _-ea_ 304, _-eva_ 199, _-ia_ 11 and _-iva_ 18. 
From 1500 on the forms _-ia_ and _-iva_ are no more found. 

So, one can say that from Tuscany to Naples and Northern Calabria, there was the form _avéa_, while in the Sicilian zone (Sicily, Central and Southern Calabria, Salento) there was/is the form _avìa_. 
Today, in Neapolitan there is a restoration of the "v", so we have _avéva_.


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## Riverplatense

Nino83 said:


> This because in Sicilian language closed /é/ and /ó/ are raised to /i/ and /u/, so _av*é*a > av*ì*a _and_ t*e*n*é*a > t*i*n*ì*a_.



Oh, of course. I didn't think about that shift here, but it's the most plausible explanation. However, isn't it possible that rather than a phonological phenomenon it's a morphological one? There's a tendency of the e-conjugation to shift to the i-conjugation, also in languages/dialects not belonging to the Sicilian type (cf. present forms _cucitë _‹cuocete›, _vëvitë _‹bevete›, Span. _bebía_) — or are those examples the result of metaphony or conserved from Latin (apart from the Spanish one, *COC*É*T*I*(S)/*COCITI(S))?


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## Nino83

Riverplatense said:


> Oh, of course. I didn't think about that shift here, but it's the most plausible explanation. However, isn't it possible that rather than a phonological phenomenon it's a morphological one?



It depends on when you date Sicilian vowel system.
For example "Fanciullo (1984), however, claims that there was an uninterrupted continuation of Romance dialects during Byzantine domination. He explains the Sicilian vowel system through bilingualism, where Romance /e/, /o/ was identified with Byzantine /i/, /u/; variation between the two vowel systems seems to have persisted until the post-Norman era."
It's clear that for Spanish and Galician-Portuguese it's a morphological phenomenon.

Seeing that Sicilian language is much more similar to Tuscan, Roman and Neapolitan, than to Spanish and Galician-Portuguese, I tend to think it is linked with the general merger of /é/ and /ó/ with /i/ and /u/.

An example from "Madonna mia, a voi mando" of Giacomo da Lentini:


> com’era vostro amante e lëalmente *amava*, e però ch’eo *dottava* non vo *facea* sembrante.





> Ben *vorria*, s’eo potesse,
> 
> ch’io non vi *poteria* più coralmente amare,



As you can see, Giacomo wrote "facéa" but probably it was just pronounced "facìa", while for the conditional form, it was just spelled with an "i".

Anyway, replying to Francis, avéa is the continuation of Vulgar Latin habeam < habebam while aveva/avevo is analogical (from the first conjugation).


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## francisgranada

Thanks for the interesting answers . 


Nino83 said:


> Anyway, replying to Francis, avéa is the continuation of Vulgar Latin habeam < habebam while aveva/avevo is analogical (from the first conjugation).


Is this supposed to be true also for the Aragonese, which maintains the _-b-_ also in -er/-ir verbs? (_trobaba, meteba, bibiba_,...)?


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## Nino83

francisgranada said:


> Is this supposed to be true also for the Aragonese, which maintains the _-b-_ also in -er/-ir verbs? (_trobaba, meteba, bibiba_,...)?



It seems it is disputed



> toda vez que el imperfecto de los verbos en -ere e -ire fue creado siguiendo el de la primera conjugación en -aba: teneba, podeba, iciba 'decía', quereba, etc.



http://ifc.dpz.es/recursos/publicaciones/15/71/11kuhn.pdf



> El morfema -eba, -iba, para el imperfecto de indicativo de la segunda y tercera conjugación, respectivamente, es característico del aragonés, hasta el punto de que el área de su uso o conocimiento permite establecer el dominio lingdístico: todo el Alto Aragón. Aunque algunos autores han explicado la -b- por posible analagía, desde nuestro puesto de vista se trata de la conservación de la -B- desinencial latina del pretérito imperfecto de indicativo en las tres conjugaciones: -ABAM> -aba, -EBAM> -eba, IBAM> -iba



http://revistas.ucm.es/index.php/RFRM/article/viewFile/RFRM0101120261A/11080


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## francisgranada

Thanks, Nino. A propos: the present conditional is formed by the infinitive plus imperfect endings (supposedly of the verb _haber_) in Spanish, but in some regional languages in Italy as well (Nap. _vurria_, Rom. _daria_, _anneria_, etc ...). In standard Italian the perfect "endings" are used instead (_andrei_, _andresti_, _andrebbe _...). Why? Which are/were used in the dialects of  Tuscany?

P.S. I've just found that in modern Romanesco _io annerebbi_ is used instead of _io anneria_.


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## Nino83

Yes, Early Romanesco was more similar to _dialetti mediani_ and _alto-meridionali_, Modern Romanesco it is more similar to Tuscan.

It is a prerogative of Tuscan the conditional with perfect endings.
In Gallo-Italian languages (for example, Piedmontese _cantrìa_) and Southern and Extreme Southern Italian languages it is formed by infinitive + imperfect endings.


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## Riverplatense

Nino83 said:


> It depends on when you date Sicilian vowel system. (...)



Thank you for the explanations!


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## Penyafort

Nino83 said:


> It seems it is disputed
> 
> http://ifc.dpz.es/recursos/publicaciones/15/71/11kuhn.pdf
> 
> http://revistas.ucm.es/index.php/RFRM/article/viewFile/RFRM0101120261A/11080



It is indeed. The problem here is that many base their knowledge of Medieval Aragonese in works that used spelling solutions quite different from what was actually being spoken by the common people. This can be seen in the differences between the _scripta _for the literary works and the one in more 'pragmatic' documents. 

So maybe it was created by analogy, but if the preservation of -b-/-v- is a logical feature in Aragonese (toballa, leixiva, calivo, zaborra) and there are examples of it in written texts all through the centuries, even if sparser than the examples of -ia-/-ie-, I don't see why it should be considered anything else than mere preservation. Notice that, in original studies about Aragonese, many linguists exposed its features as a deviation of the Spanish norm, as it was wrongly regarded as a dialect, so sometimes weird explanations had to be formulated.


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## francisgranada

Penyafort said:


> ...  but if the preservation of -b-/-v- is a logical feature in Aragonese (toballa, leixiva, calivo, zaborra) and there are examples of it in written texts all through the centuries, even if sparser than the examples of -ia-/-ie-, I don't see why it should be considered anything else than mere preservation.


Possible reasons against the mere preservation:
- the absence of _-b-/-v-_ already in vulgar Latin in -ere/-ire verbs (already mentioned before) ***
- the Tuscan in general also preserves the intervocalic Latin _-v/b-_ (> _v_) ****, as far as I know, neverthless in old Tuscan (13th/14th century) we have _-ea/-ia_ in imperfect.
- the endings of the Aragonese conditional without _-b-_ (e.g._ trobaría, trobarías, trobaría, trobaríanos, trobaríaz, trobarían_) *****

*** A propos: is it a _probable _hypothesis or we have also written examples?
**** In some cases the intervocalic _b/v_ does not originate from Latin _b/v. _See for example the Italian _rovina _< Lat. _ruina_ and _tovaglia _< Povenc. _toalha _(finally of Germanic origin, according to both DRAE and Treccani). This may be the case of your example _toballa_, as well.
***** However, in a short overview of the  Aragonese language (that I have downloaded some years ago) I've found the following forms: _trobarba, trobarbas, trobarba, trobárbanos, trobarbaz, trobarban_. This is evidently in favour of the "preservation theory" (if _these _are the forms that correspond to the "original" [medieval] Aragonese conditional).


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