# Does au often become ao in Italian like Paulus > Paolo?



## Catagrapha

Are there examples of au > ao from Latin or other languages to Italian like Paulus > Paolo?
(excluding -aus/-aum>-ao like Menelaus>Menelao）


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## A User

_Aosta_ from _Augusta Prætoria_

Aosta (pronuncia Aòsta, /a'ɔsta/[3]; Aoste in francese[4][5]; Aoûta in arpitano sopradialettale; Oûta, o Veulla in patois valdostano standard, Ohta nella variante della bassa valle[5]; Augschtal in walser[6]; Osta o Aosta in piemontese[7]) è un comune italiano.

Aosta (UK: /ɑːˈɒstə/,[4] US: /ɑːˈɔːstɑː/,[5] Italian: [aˈɔsta] ; French: Aoste [ɔst],[a] formerly Aouste; Arpitan: Aoûta [aˈuta], Veulla [ˈvəla] or Ouhta [ˈuhta]; Latin: Augusta Praetoria Salassorum; Walser: Augschtal; Piedmontese: Osta) is the principal city of Aosta Valley


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## Cenzontle

It seems to me that the stressed "o" of "Aosta" results from the stressed "u" of "Augusta", not from the diphthong "au".  
The case of Paulus > Paolo is different from this, isn't it?


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## A User

AVGVSTVS—Αὔγουστος—Α(ὔ)γο(υ)στος—Agosto(IT)/August(EN).
Non posso stabilire se la parola Aosta derivi da AV(GV)STA, da A(VG)VSTA, o da AV(G)VSTA.
Osta(Piemontese) può derivare da AV(GV)STA [Aurum—Oro(IT)/Gold(EN)].
Aoûta(Arpitano) è più probabile che derivi da AV(G)V(S)TA, o da A(VG)V(S)TA.
Aosta sembra un compromesso tra Aoûta e Osta.
Παῦλος—Πάουλ—Πάο(υ)λ—Paolo(IT).


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## A User

Consultando un ‘Vocabolario Universale Italiano’(1834) a pagina 541 ho potuto leggere una derivazione di parole: 
Pàguro, pàuro, pòrro simile a Pagolo, Pavolo e Paolo.
Una conferma: 
... bbrutta arpia tornerà da la bbùscia de San Pavolo doppo tanti mil ’ anni er Nocchilia .


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## A User




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## Sobakus

I don't believe there are any examples of /aw/ the diphthong > /ao/. What happened with _Paolo _is quite parallel to _Menelao _(except the latter is not inherited and so we can't talk of it having undergone phonetic developments at all). Namely, /paw.lus/ has been reinterpreted to contain the diminutive suffix /ulũ/, breaking up the syllable/dipthong /aw/: /pa.u.lũ/. The hiatus was in all probability regularly filled by /w/, and so the diminutive suffix developed regularly. Certain (Tuscan) dialects shifted the hiatus-filler to /g/ (this interchange is already visible in Late Latin, e.g. in _σαγμα_ /saɣ.ma/ > _sauma _/saw.ma/) and is otherwise common in Italy and the islands; others retained it as /v/; yet others dropped the hiatus filler altogether, presumably because they tolerated hiatus more, and this was selected as standard. Hence we get the three forms _Pagolo, Pavolo_ and _Paolo_.

I'm not aware of any "Byzantine" form with /i/ or /e/, and it's not necessary. The /e/ in Slavic is an intra-Slavic development from an epenthetic vowel ь = ĭ (Pavьlъ, Pavĭlŭ). Slavic didn't tolerate closed syllables back then, including left-headed diphthongs (aw).

The Latin form in -au- coexisted with _Pōllus_, originally dialectal but very common in the city of Rome by the Late Republic. It doesn't seem to have survived into Romance, likely due to eventual homophony with the outcome of _pullus_.


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## berndf

Sobakus said:


> I don't believe there are any examples of /aw/ the diphthong > /ao/.


So, you assume _Paulus_ was /pawlʊs/ rather than /paʊlʊs/. Could you explain why?


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## Sobakus

berndf said:


> So, you assume _Paulus_ was /pawlʊs/ rather than /paʊlʊs/. Could you explain why?


I'm not sure if you're asking about the phonetic realisation or the phonology of it, but the syllable /aw/ behaves precisely the same as any vowel-consonant sequence. If you add a vowel, for example, the /w/ resyllabifies: /kaw.tus/ > /ka.wē.re/, and vice versa /a.wi.kel.la/ > /aw.kel.la/. Further, /aw/ was the only original diphthong that had survived into proto-Romance the multiple waves of diphthong eliminations; where it remains today, it's primarily (if not exclusively) as two syllables (probably the whole of Italy) or as a vowel-consonant sequence. Latin "short/lax" vowels can only exist as the syllable nucleus, and they get invariably deleted as the first vowel in hiatus. The only truly diphthongal area I can think of is Galician-Portuguese. The last pointer is quite straighforward: the /w/ in /aw/ never develops in the same way as /ŭ/. Granted, that's begging the question.


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## Catagrapha

Sobakus said:


> Certain (Tuscan) dialects shifted the hiatus-filler to /g/ (this interchange is already visible in Late Latin, e.g. in _σαγμα_ /saɣ.ma/ > _sauma _/saw.ma/) and is otherwise common in Italy and the islands; others retained it as /v/; yet others dropped the hiatus filler altogether, presumably because they tolerated hiatus more, and this was selected as standard. Hence we get the three forms _Pagolo, Pavolo_ and _Paolo_.


Indeed, e.g., nubilus > nuvolo > nugolo, uvula > ugola.  
Also the other way around, e.g., in Agone > Navona


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## berndf

Sobakus said:


> Granted, that's begging the question.


Well, exactly:


Sobakus said:


> the /w/ in /aw/ never develops in the same way as /ŭ/.


_Pa*u*l*u*s > Pa*o*l_*o* would be such an example.


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## ahvalj

_Paulus_ itself comes from earlier trisyllabic _*paurelos > paullus _(attested), which may have coexisted (as _*paurulus_) in non-literary speech. Speculating, an intermediate _*pauvulus_ is imaginable as well.


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## berndf

ahvalj said:


> _paullus _(attested)


That would be a counter example agaist the phonological analysis <au>=/aw/ rather than /aʊ/. Geminate consonants can only occur intervocalically in Latin.


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## ahvalj

Another attested form is _paullulus, _a secondarily formed diminutive (as _*paurelos>paullus_ was a diminutive itself).

My proposed _*pauvulus_ can in principle lead directly to _Pavolo~Paolo,_ assuming a simplification _*pauvulus>*pavulus._


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## Penyafort

Sobakus said:


> The Latin form in -au- coexisted with _Pōllus_, originally dialectal but very common in the city of Rome by the Late Republic. *It doesn't seem to have survived into Romance, likely due to eventual homophony with the outcome of pullus.*



I agree. And likely with Paullus too, as in Catalan we've got two well-established variants, Pau and Pol.


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## ahvalj

By the way, what's the standard explanation of the phonetic evolution of _Pablo_?


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## Sobakus

berndf said:


> Well, exactly:
> 
> _Pa*u*l*u*s > Pa*o*l_*o* would be such an example.


It would be in absence of any other explanation. Tuscan Italian doesn't preserve the PRmc /a͜w/, but regularly monophthongises it to /ɔ/, as do many other Romance varieties. _Paolo _is clearly a special development, for which I gave a straightforward and regular explanation. It's crystal-clear that it contains the regular diminutive suffix.

On a more obvious level one can indeed say that _Paolo_ is an example of AV > AO in graphemic notation, with the caveat that the AV in question stood for a bisyllabic sequence /a.(w)u/.


berndf said:


> That would be a counter example agaist the phonological analysis <au>=/aw/ rather than /aʊ/. Geminate consonants can only occur intervocalically in Latin.


_Paullus_ is the earlier form that underwent the regular degemination to _Paulus, _that applied after AV and AE, but not after long vowels. It is precisely after this happened (1 c. BC) that one can confidently treat /aw/ as a vowel-consonant sequence - a necessary condition for the shift. The fact that it applied after /ae/ (_caelum_ < *caed-lom) coincidentally tells us that it wasn't monophthongised yet at that point. If geminates can only occur intervocalically, then the V and E in question weren't vowels, but consonants. The geminate spellings continued to exist as graphic archaisms (also in _caussa, cāssus)_, but the grammarians explicitly say that they cannot be pronounced as spelt. Notice in _cāsus _that consonants other than /l/ were simplified also after long vowels.


ahvalj said:


> Another attested form is _paullulus, _a secondarily formed diminutive (as _*paurelos>paullus_ was a diminutive itself).
> 
> My proposed _*pauvulus_ can in principle lead directly to _Pavolo~Paolo,_ assuming a simplification _*pauvulus>*pavulus._


_*paurelos_ is unattested and is merely a reconstructed form. Its development to _Paullus _via unstressed vowel deletion was complete by about the 5 c. BC, which pretty much excludes any such surivors. Latin has very regular dissimilation of r-r and l-l (which continues even in modern Castilian), but r-l sequences themselves are desirable and stable. There's neither a reason for nor an example of /r > w/, least of all with a /w/ already preceding. In this case the regular development is metathesis: _*pawros > parwos._


ahvalj said:


> By the way, what's the standard explanation of the phonetic evolution of _Pablo_?


The same as I gave for Italian: /paw.lũ/ > reanalysis /pa.(w)u.lũ/ > regular syncope /paw.lũ/ > regular B~V merger /pablo/. I'm not sure about the syllabification in Old or New Spanish, but the outcome being the same as that of _tabula_ and different from _causa_ testifies that /bl/ was homosyllabic when /aw/ monophtongised in Castilian. Curiously, Venetian seems to have both _Pagoło and Poło, but only toła; _it's the reverse in French (_Pol, table_). The syllabification of _muta-cum-liquida_ seems to have remained unstable from pre-literary Latin right down to this day.


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## ahvalj

Your idea with _w_ faces one major problem: the lack of examples of such a development in Latin. _Paullulus>paululus_ rather suggest that _paullus>paulus_ weren't perceived as diminutives anymore, so what would be the motivation of this special development _paulus>*pavulus_?

_Ll_ after a long vowel in the imperial period also could stand for a palatalized _l_ as an orthographic convention (_vīlla_ with derivatives, _mīlle_).

Latin retains/maintains (perhaps by recreating) a number of syncopated/non-syncopated doublets: _facultās__~facilitās, extrā~exterā. _For our case compare _misellus__~miserulus, puellus~puerulus._


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## Sobakus

ahvalj said:


> Your idea with _w_ faces one major problem: the lack of examples of such a development in Latin.


What development exactly are you referring to?


> _Paullulus>paululus _rather suggest that _paullus>paulus_ weren't perceived as diminutives anymore, so what would be the motivation of this special development _paulus>*pavulus_?



Latin, like many other languages including Russian, allows concatenation of diminutive suffixes. The fact that _мамусенька _exists doesn't imply that _мамуся _or _мамка _aren't perceived as diminutives any more.
_paulus_ the adjective no longer exists in Late Republican Latin; _paulum_ and _paulō_ are the only forms in use (one noun and the other an adverb), and they have a very strong diminutive semantics baked into them. Whether _Paulus_ the name was perceived as a diminutive from a non-existent word is not apparent on its own, and it's precisely the Romance reinterpretation that is the evidence we're looking for.
The motivation for the morphological reanalysis is simple: in Latin, -ulus was a by-form of the basic -lus preceded the a-/o-stem vowel (which regularly reduced or syncopated and was restored). In Romance, -ulũ was generalised in favour of -lũ. This prompted the reanalysis in question: _paw+lũ > pa(w)+ulũ_. Come to think of it, the /w/ might have remained all along, the only thing that changed is the addition of a vowel.



> _Ll_ after a long vowel in the imperial period also could stand for a palatalized _l_ as an orthographic convention (_vīlla_ with derivatives, _mīlle_).


All geminate /ll/ were prototypically palatalised. VILLA regularly spells /vīl.la/ like POLLVS spells /pōl.lus/.


> Latin retains/maintains (perhaps by recreating) a number of syncopated/non-syncopated doublets: _facultās__~facilitās, extrā~exterā. _For our case compare _misellus__~miserulus, puellus~puerulus._


Yes, this is precisely parallel to the change I'm talking about. In fact it could be the exact same change: consonant-initial suffixes were no longer felt to be the basic forms, replaced by vowel-initial ones: _puer+lus > puer+ulus :: paw+lus > paw+ulus._


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## ahvalj

We both seem to agree that the original source of _Pavolo~Paolo_ and _Pablo_ was _*Pavulus._ You suggest that it was reanalyzed from the late _paulus,_ where _-ulus_ was still/again perceived as a diminutive suffix — I suspect that it may represent a non-resyllabified purely phonetic continuation of the original trisyllabic form of this word (we'd rather expect _*paurelos>*paur̥los>*pavellus, _so _*paurlos>paullus_ is not quite regular either and could have coexisted for example with the form with a syllabic _u: *paur̥los>*pau̥los>*pavulus_).


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## Sobakus

Could you provide examples of the purely phonetic shifts that you postulate? Never in my reading have I come across anything of this sort in Latin. What's irregular about _*paurlos>paullus?_ How did you arrive at _*paur̥los>*pau̥los>*pavulus? _All of this looks extremely unusual, and frankly impossible to me, and I'd say you created these shifts entirely ad-hoc.


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## ahvalj

Well, some instances of _-ellus _and _-ullus_ are results of such re-syllabifications from _*-relos>*-r̥los>-ellus_ (_*agrelos>agellus, *polkrelos>pulcellus, *lufrelos>libellus, *ruþrelos>rubellus_) and _*-nelos>*-n̥los>*-ollos>-ullus _(_*xemnelos>__homullus_).

My point is that the syncopation of _-e-_ in sonorant+_-el-_ retained a syllable that was normally restored by inserting a vowel before the sonorant (see examples above), and from _*paurelos _we'd properly expect _*pavellus._ That we find _paullus>paulus_ is itself aberrant. Do we have other examples of _aurl>aull_?


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## Sobakus

I see, then the different development of must must be down to the peculiar syllable structure of the resulting _*paur̥los_ - the "expected" outcome would necessitate the breaking up of the diphthong (_*pa.wel.los)_, which was allowed and normal in circa-Classical Latin, but apparently not in the period in question, which is something like 7 centuries before that. That is, if it were to not undergo the "expected expected" development, which is metathesis _*pau.re.los > *par.we.los_, which is visible in the presumably later rebuilt _parvulus._ I don't think there are other examples of -wr- in Latin, which was noted in a work I once read that questioned the regularity of /wr > rw/, but I have no idea where...​​And with that I consulted Weiss 2009 (p.177) only to see that he derives_ paullus_ from _*paukslos_, which has a further diminutive _pauxillus_ just like _aulla~ōlla, auxilla _(cf. _āla, axilla < *aks-; māla, vēlum, pālus_ where the vowel was lengthened, but after a diphthong it was the consonant). In this case _parvulus_ could indeed be the direct outcome of _*paurelos._

_...but then_ I opened De Vaan 2008 p.451, who doubts that derivation: "However, the suffix _*-slo-_ is otherwise only used for instrument nouns, and only after consonant stems; both are reasons to reject a preform _*pauk-slo-_ derived from _*pau-ko-_", and quotes Thurneysen as deriving it from our _*paurelos._​
Whatever the case may be, neither _*pavellus _nor _*pa.(v)ulus_ are attested in Latin, and I don't think it's justified to postulate their covert existence, especially in such common and well-attested words as these. Especially when the only possible ground for postulating the latter form, namely some Romance forms of the name, have been already explained through entirely regular, attested developments.

That, and the fact that your derivations are still impossible, as I've mentioned: _*paurelos>*paur̥los _would "expectedly" give _*pa.wel.los_, and "expectedly expectedly" _*par.we.los _or even _*pa.ru.los_. The single-l form can only be derived from the regular degemination of _Paullus, _which is proof that the latter was disyllabic, with the first syllable closed by a consonant.​


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## ahvalj

de Vaan himself mentions _*paurelo-_ on p. 451 (above), though without direct connections with _paulus_. It seems that this PIE _*pehₐu-_ had several extensions in Italic, so both _*pau-ks-os_ and _*pau-r-os_ could have existed (along with _*pau-k-os_ and _*pau-per-os_).

I am not convinced about the often proposed _ru̯-_metathesis: we have just two roots with it (_parvus_ and _nervus_) and two without (_taurus_ and _-staurāre_). Celtic has _*taru̯os__,_ but Lusitanian has _taurom_.

[Partial cross-post with your update]

P. S. To sum up my suggestion: _*pau̯relos>*pau̯rlos>*pau̥rlos>*pau̥los>*pavulus>Pavolo~Paolo _& _Pablo_ parallel to _*pau̯relos>*pau̯rlos>paullus>paulus_ and _*pau̯relos>*paru̯elos>*paru̯olos>parvulus _(that is, all the three variants were real and had attested outcomes).


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## Sobakus

ahvalj said:


> *pau̯relos>*pau̯rlos>*pau̥rlos>*pau̥los


The last two are simply and openly an impossible syllable structure in Latin, or even ancient Indo-European as a whole. /u/ after a vowel and before a consonant surfaces as [w]. /r/ between two consonants surfaces as [r̥]. /Vrl > Vll/, or conceivably /V̄l/, but in no case /Vl/.


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## ahvalj

Sobakus said:


> The last two are simply and openly an impossible syllable structure in Latin, or even ancient Indo-European as a whole.


These would be short-lived intermediate stages following the syncope. _*Agros>*agr̥s>ager_ acquired _r̥_ long after the PIE syllabic sonorants had vocalized in Proto-Italic.


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## Sobakus

ahvalj said:


> These would be short-lived intermediate stages following the syncope. _*Agros>*agr̥s>ager_ acquired _r̥_ long after the PIE syllabic sonorants had vocalized in Proto-Italic.


And for all we know there was a prolonged stage with secondary syllabic sonorants. But what you're suggesting is equivalent to _*agros > ag̥r. _It's not a question of how long this stage lasted - it's that such a syllabification is without precident at any stage from PIE to modern Romance, which are all basically CV languages that demand a syllable onset, and as such it's synchronically impossible. Even if it was possible, _*pau̥rlos_ > _*pau̥los_ is impossible but must > _paullos; _Even if that was possible, the only syllabification of /paulos/ that is possible in any kind of Latin is /paw.los/, and postulating /pa.u̥.los/ is the same as postulating /mo.n̥.te/. The only way to get /pa.(w)u.los/ is through a morphophonemic metanalysis, which is what I've proposed.


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## ahvalj

I don't understand why in a highly unusual group _au̯r̥lo,_ that occasionally emerged in one single word as a result of syncope, the development could have not been such as to resolve it into both _au̯llo_ (with loss of syllabicity) and *_au̥lo>*au̯ulo_ (with its retention). These variants could have coexisted in the speech of the same person (including _au̥~au̯u_ to please the Italic phonetic gods). Again: do we have other examples with _auCl>aull? _It's as unique as the latter scenario.


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## Sobakus

For the same reason *_agrelos!>*aglus, *polkrelos!>*pulclus, *lufrelos!>liblus, *ruþrelos!>rublus _and _*xemnelos!>homlus:_ the sonorant cannot simply disappear, and neither can the syllable /u̯r̥/ that you yourself are postulating. The whole purpose of postulating said syllable is to explain the appearence of a vowel before the sonorant, /e/ in the case of /r/. The syllable /u̯r̥/ must be reflected as /wer/ (cf. _agellus_). The /w/ is not syllabic and there can be no loss or retention of its syllabicity, and in a /VwRC/ sequence it must be non-syllabic because CV syllables invariably win over VC. *_au̥lo>*au̯ulo_ is impossible because it has never been observed in Latin, there is only one process, that of forming a VC (or V: ) syllable out of V.V, widely represented throught the history of the language. One cannot just invent the opposite process out of nothing. Again, this exists in modern Romance languages, for instance Italian, even with epenthesis at the south of Italy, e.g. in Sicilian _càvuru<*caudu< caldũ_. This is becuase these languages have an extremely limited syllable structure, where even syllable-final sonorants are banned. Late Latin allowed even CC codas, and /aw/ was eliminated through monophthongisation, or through deletion of /w/ before /u/ (_Agosto, ascultare_), both of which is very well attested. What you're postulating is not attested.

Incidentally the _-ul-_ in _homullus _speaks against its derivation from a syllabic nasal, since *-_n̥lo-_ gives _-illo-_ (_sigillum, tigillum < signum, tignum_).

An example of _auCl>aull_ is _aulla<*auksla, _and _vīlla<*veiksla, caelum<*caedlom, lūna<louksna_ are close enough analogies.


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## ahvalj

But your fictitious examples imply a disappearance of the syllable, which is the opposite to what I suggest. In my scenario _*u̯r̥l_ becomes _(u̯)ul_. Try to pronounce _*pawrlos_ yourself several times and try to observe what happens in each case. I am sure _*pawərlos_ and _*pa.u.rlos_ and _*pawəlos _will emerge as variants.

Yes, _homullus_ is a problem, but compare _homunculus, _which has the same _*onc>unc _(for the development compare _uncus_). Perhaps an _o_-grade then (<_*xemonelos_)?

Yes, _aulla_ etc. are good examples, but with_ s,_ which deletes everything between it and _l,_ compare _ex_ vs. _ēlūdō_. So, we need _au_ + stop + _l_.

P. S. I'd like to repeat that I don't suggest a phonetic law. I suggest an idiosyncratic development of a unique short-lived hard to pronounce cluster.

P. P. S. A development _au̯>au̯u,_ even by analogy as you suggest, has not been observed in Latin either. We're dealing with a unique case, whatever the explanation.

P. P. S. As a crazy idea, why not to imagine we're dealing with a re-latinization of the Greek _Pavlos>*Pavulus_? Like in _John_ vs. _Sean~Shaun~Shawn~Shon_?


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## Sobakus

ahvalj said:


> But your fictitious examples imply a disappearance of the syllable, which is the opposite to what I suggest. In my scenario _*u̯r̥l_ becomes _(u̯)ul_. Try to pronounce _*pawrlos_ yourself several times and try to observe what happens in each case. I am sure _*pawərlos_ and _*pa.u.rlos_ and _*pawəlos _will emerge as variants.


Here it's worth asking why create such a cluster in the first place, when you have an already-existing solution in the metathesis? Ideally it should serve as an event horizon preventing us from speculating about what would have happened to the sequence had it not metathesized.

_*pawərlos_ and _*pa.ur.los_ do emerge, but I'm perplexed why you're suggesting the clearly impossible _*pawəlos._ I can't put this down to anything other than syllable weight being foreign to your native language, and geminate consonants unstable. Even modern Italian preserves these things meticulously, and in Latin you simply can never have a consonant disappear to leave an open syllable.

This is notwithstanding that both _*pawərlos_ and _*pa.ur.los_ would regularly develop to our attested /paul.lus/, one via assimilation and regular syncope of the medial syllable, the other simply by the former step alone. It makes no difference whether the /u/ ever made a syllable or belonged to a different one, or even if it contracted later, was final and preceded by a diphthong (_neu̯, seu̯ < neiu̯e, seiu̯e_).

If there had been a trisyllabic by-form, it's precisely this form that would have escaped degemination, giving _*Pavollo_.


> Yes, _homullus_ is a problem, but compare _homunculus, _which has the same _*onc>unc _(for the development compare _uncus_).


The o>u raising isn't even surprising next to examples like _ampulla < ampora_. It's the back vowel itself in all the on-stems.


> Yes, _aulla_ etc. are good examples, but with_ s,_ which deletes everything between it and _l,_ compare _ex_ vs. _ēlūdō_. So, we need _au_ + stop + _l_.


The _s_ is between the stop and the _l_, and as far as I can see that _s_ is completely transparent to the outcome. A lone _s_ lengthens the preceding vowel _(vīlis < *wes-li)_, as does stop + _l (pālus<*paksl-)._ I've given three examples of diphthong + stop + _l_, all of which were phonemically no different from _au_. I think you already have what you're looking for.


> P. P. S. A development _au̯>au̯u,_ even by analogy as you suggest, has not been observed in Latin either. We're dealing with a unique case, whatever the explanation.


The advantage of my explanation is that metanalysis doesn't require being observed in a language in order to be postulated - it's a universal linguistic process. Of course, in our case this exact metanalysis has been noted in the very same language by your own self. Most importantly, we're not talking about phonetics, and therefore what exactly precedes our metanalized diminutive suffix simply doesn't matter. It makes no difference in the least whether it was _paw- or puer-_, in this is why I think my explanation simply can't be shot down.


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## A User

"La nostra *plebe* dice «fiura» per «figura» (ndr. al Nord, perché al Sud dice/diceva «pagura» per «paura»). Originando la voce cosi «Paguro» (ndr. πάγουρος), poi frodando il g, venne a dirsi «pauro» : nello stesso modo che da noi fu detto «paura», e da' Franzesi «peur», dal latino «pavor» fognando l'*u consonante*, che corrisponde al g. E da questo «pauro» di tre sillabe , si fece poi di due, e si disse «poro», e per più enfasi «porro». È ciò molto simile a Pagolo, Pavolo e Paolo”.
Other examples (with some differences between them)
PAONAZZO (common word, understandable, but not very used)
PAVONAZZO (much less common of «paonazzo», nowadays)
PAGONAZZO (ancient word, probably no longer used) 
Evolution of «Parvŭlus» (Diminutive of PARVVS)
PARGOLO (understandable word)
PARVOLO (no more common; literary or more literary form (considering «pargolo» is less widespread of its synonyms).
PAROLO (It doesn’t exist)
Diminutives of diminutive: PARGOLETTO - PARVOLETTO


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## ahvalj

I think now that my crazy suggestion of a re-borrowing from Greek solves everything: phonetically, semantically (only connected with Christianity), geographically (existing in parallel with the proper Latin _Paulus_ with its Romance outcomes).

P. S. Concerning _pawəlos:_ I chose the wrong letter, I meant a sound close to the American unstressed _-er. _I think _w_ may have colored the following shwa.

P. P. S. Clusters are resolved sometimes in an unpredictable way. For example, thorn clusters: there is no way to get _s_ in _ursus_ from _*tkʲ_ in _*hₐr̥tkʲos_, yet this is what we find in reality (instead of something like **_ārtus_).



Sobakus said:


> The _s_ is between the stop and the _l_, and as far as I can see that _s_ is completely transparent to the outcome. A lone _s_ lengthens the preceding vowel _(vīlis < *wes-li)_, as does stop + _l (pālus<*paksl-)._ I've given three examples of diphthong + stop + _l_, all of which were phonemically no different from _au_. I think you already have what you're looking for.


I only see _caelum<*caedlom, _which by the way has no accepted etymology.


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## Sobakus

ahvalj said:


> I only see _caelum<*caedlom, _which by the way has no accepted etymology.


I'm talking about "chisel", not "sky". The other two are _lūna_ and _vīlla_.


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## ahvalj

Sobakus said:


> The "sky" one has a couple very convincing ones, both involving kaid-. But I'm talking about the "chisel" one. The other ones a _lūna_ and _vīlla_.


These latter involve _s,_ which deletes the preceding consonant together with itself even in Slavic (_luna<*lou̯ksnā, lono<*logʰsno(m) ~ ložesno<*logʰesno(m) _vs._ agnьcь<agnikos_). I am not convinced about _caelum_.


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## Sobakus

ahvalj said:


> These latter involve _s,_ which deletes the preceding consonant together with itself even in Slavic (_luna<*lou̯ksnā, lono<*logʰsno(m) ~ ložesno<*logʰesno(m) _vs._ agnьcь<agnikos_). I am not convinced about _caelum_.


The _s_ doesn't delete the preceding consonant. The whole cluster is assimilated to _l _after a diphthong, or adds a mora to the vowel otherwise (not sure if there are examples after a clearly long vowel). Are you expecting some other development without the _s_?

You're not convinved that _caelum_ "chisel" with its deverbal _caelāre _"to engrave" is from _*kaid-slo-_, from _caedere?_


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## ahvalj

We're discussing the probability of assimilation _auCl>aull: _what I want to say, that if this _C_ is a single consonant and not _s,_ I have not seen unequivocal examples: I don't understand why we should reject the anaptyxis to _auCul _instead. “Chizel” asks for _-slom _for semantic reasons, as you yourself have cited.

P. S. Again, when discussing _paulus_ we're dealing with one single word with unique prehistoric phonetics, in either scenario. Anything could have happened.


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## Zec

When discussing various scenarios, it would be good to be aware of the fact that semivowels are not your typical consonants. Depending on the language, the only difference between, say, _u_ and _w_ could be that _u_ counts as a syllable while _w_ doesn't; in other languages there may be a phonetic difference between the two. In the former case epenthesis in *pawrlos may not be as inevitable as it seems on a first glance.


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## A User

Dal “Tommaseo-Bellini on line” al quale si può accedere dal sito dell’Accademia della Crusca:
Ricerca voci pertinenti: U, V, Paolo, Pavolo, Pagolo
Solo un accento di quello che si può trovare.
Excerpt: [G.M.] Alcune volte, invece dell'U(vocale), si trova il V(consonante) con un O innanzi o dopo: Continovo per Continuo, Pavolo per Paolo, Capova per Capua, Pattovire per Pattuire, Strenovo per Strenuo, e Statova per Statua (in Guitt.). Così da Mantua, Vidua, s'è fatto Mantova, Vedova.



Cenzontle said:


> It seems to me that the stressed "o" of "Aosta" results from the stressed "u" of "Augusta", not from the diphthong "au".
> The case of Paulus > Paolo is different from this, isn't it?


AVGVSTA (latin) – ? – Agòsta – Avòsta – Aòsta
La v(consonante) cade 2 volte perché, come ricorda il Tommaseo, limitatamente ad alcuni dialetti (del Nord? - in "Augusta" in Sicilia non cade nulla), in AV di AVGVSTA la V ha suono consonantico.


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## bearded

A User said:


> Solo un accento


You certainly mean ''solo un accenno''.

PS. Why don't you write in English, so that everybody can understand you?  It'a a good forum habit to write in the same language as others do..


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