# Did old/proto Romanian have more cases than now?



## diana l

Hi. Native English speaker here and didn't know exactly were to put this so I thought I'll put it here. 

Okay, so I'm kind of studying linguistic history (just basic stuff) and I've been seeing that most romance languages in their older forms didn't have more than 2 case declensions. I know that Romanian has apparently inherited technically 5 cases from Latin, but they are technically just three that are distinguishable from each other, a merged Nom/Acc, Gen/Dative and a Vocative case. Though that's just the basics that I know. Correct me if I'm wrong on that. 

Knowing that the trend in Vulgar Latin and romance languages was to drop or in some cases merge cases (no pun intended). So is there any evidence that older/proto Romainian had possibly had more distinguishable cases than right now?


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## irinet

Hi,


_a)The Oxford Guide to the Romance Languages_ by Adam Ledgeway and Martin Maiden, b)_Linguistique balkanique, problemes et résultats _by Sandfeld K., c) _Elements of the Comparative Grammar of the Indo-Germanic Languages [...] _by Brugmann K, etc. may be of help.

2. a)Technically, there are 3 cases as you said: two nominal cases that you've mentioned already, and the Vocative, always separated by _a comma in the sentence, _and with the distinguishable mark of _orality._
b) It's also interesting to see the diverse way the cases form sincretically or analytically via Latin or Dacian inheritance.

3. Vulgar Latin was the language that was spoken, which makes me logically think of less rules applied, so I cannot think of the existance of more cases in Vulgar L than in the Latin texts. However, _I am not a linguist, _so you should keep in mind that this is only my personal opinion.

4. And most importantly, you can ask this in the _Latin Language _thread_,  _or in the _Etymology, History of Languages... _one_, too._


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## berndf

Moderator note: Moved to EHL.


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## danielstan

Well, I am not linguist, but I will put here my observations on the matter, from the literature I read so far.

From Dacian language we have no conclusive words or sentences attested, only some toponymes and a list of 47 medicinal plants cited by Dioscorides.
All the conjectures made in Romanian philology about Romanian words of Dacian origin are based on cognates from Albanian language.
Nothing useful in Albanian for the problem of case declension in Romanian.

In the Balkans even before proto-Romanian language emerged from Vulgar Latin, the final _*-m*_ and _*-s*_ have disappeared from the Latin words.
Attestations can be found in the work _De Aedificiis_ (by Procopius of Cesarea) probably written in 560 AD. There are some toponymes without final_ -s_ or _-m_ in it:
Asilva (< Lat. Ad Silvam), Burgualtu (Lat. Burgus Altus) etc.

1) the Nominative/Accusative case in Romanian.
Romanian, as most of the Romance languages, have inherited their Latin nouns from Accusative form, in the vast majority of the cases.
E.g.
Lat. _canis _(Nom.)/_canem _(Acc.) > Rom. _cîine_, It. _cane_
For the nouns like Lat. _lupus _(Nom.)/_lupum _(Acc.) the merge Nominative-Accusative was produced since the Vulgar Latin stage and could have been a stimulus for merging these cases on all nouns.

The merging of Nominative with Accusative is an evolution that happened in all Romance languages, so probably it was there before Romance languages emerged.

2) Vocative
Romanian has inherited the Latin masculine vocative in the word
Rom. _dumnezeu _< Lat. _Domine Deus_ (_domine _is Vocative for _dominus_)

Romanian masculine Vocative has 2 forms:
- for names: _Ion _("John") -> _Ioane _(Vocative), Stefan -> Stefane (Voc.)
- for common nouns: _lup _("wolf") -> _lupule _< Lat. _lupum _+ _ille (_but there is a regional variant, archaic_: lupe_ which corresponds to the Latin Vocative_ lupe < lupus) 
_
The Romanian masculine Vocative, by coincidence, has the same_ -e_ ending like the Slavic one:
_Ivan -> Ivane (_Vocative, Bulgarian)
Probably the Slavic Vocative was a stimulus for preserving the Latin Vocative in Romanian.

Feminine Vocative in standard Romanian has an -o ending, imported from South Slavic.
E.g.
Ana -> Ano (Vocative)
fata -> fato (Vocative)
There is present, in Banat and other regions, the feminine vocative in -ă ending:
Ana -> Ană
This kind of feminine Vocative is not inherited from Latin.

3) Genitive/Dative
The masculine Genitive in Latin was:
Lat. _dominus _-> _domini _(see the expression _Anno Domini_)
Romanian Genitive is:
Rom. _domn _-> _domnului _(< Lat. _dominus _+ _illui_; where ILLUI is the Genitive of ILLE)

So, the Romanian Genitive is not directly inherited from Latin Genitive, but is based on the definite article ILLE which has developed in all Romance languages.

Romanian Feminine Genitive is:
Rom. _capră _-> _caprei  _(which has evolved from Lat. _capra _+ illaei, where ILLAEI is the Genitive of ILLA definite article)
Note that Aromanian has a Feminine Genitive like:
_capral'ei_ (where_ l'_ denotes the palatalized L, like in Italian GLI)

The merge of Genitive and Dativ in Romanian is, most probably, a linguistic phenomen related to Balkan Sprachbund (Balkan Linguistic Union), as this feature is encountered in other Balkanic languages like Bulgarian, modern Greek and so.


In conculsion, the Romanian 3 case declension is the result of many influences, starting with Classical Latin, then Vulgar Latin which has grammaticalized the demonstrative pronoun ILLE as definite article, Slavic influence and Balkanic influence.



-----------
Relatively to the question of this thread:
- there are no positive facts of 5 case declension in Old Romanian
The oldest surviving document in Romanian is from 1521 AD( "Neacsu's letter") and there are significant Romanian religious texts from XVI century. They don't attest a different system of declension than the one of today. They do attest an older form of Feminine Genitive in Romanian ("mameei" instead of today "mamei"), but not much difference.

Other researches have been done by comparing Daco-Romanian (Romanian dialect spoken in Romania and Republic of Moldova) to Aromanian, Megleno-Romanian and Istro-Romanian dialects spoken South of Danube.
Nothing found to change the paradigm of 3 case system.


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## Sardokan1.0

danielstan said:


> Romanian masculine Vocative has 2 forms:
> - for names: _Ion _("John") -> _Ioane _(Vocative), Stefan -> Stefane (Voc.)



this characteristic is present also in many Sardinian masculine names

Juanne (pronounce Yuanne) -> while in Italian : Giovanni
Istévene -> Stefano
Costantine (Constantinus->Constantine) -> Costantino
Deomidri (Demetrius->Demetri) -> Demetrio
Dionísi (Dionysius->Dionysi) -> Dionigi
Basile (Basilius->Basile) -> Basilio
Mariane (Marianus->Mariane) -> Mariano
Martine (Martinus->Martine) -> Martino
Micáli, Miáli (Greek, Michális->Micháli) -> Michele


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## danielstan

Well, no direct connection between Romanian and Sardinian masculine names vocatives, because they inherit directly the Latin vocative.
See the well known sentence:
"- Et tu, Brute?"
addressed by Julius Caesar to Brutus.


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## Caktus

danielstan said:


> 3) Genitive/Dative
> The masculine Genitive in Latin was:
> Lat. _dominus _-> _domini _(see the expression _Anno Domini_)
> Romanian Genitive is:
> Rom. _domn _-> _domnului _(< Lat. _dominus _+ _illui_; where ILLUI is the Genitive of ILLE)
> 
> So, the Romanian Genitive is not directly inherited from Latin Genitive, but is based on the definite article ILLE which has developed in all Romance languages.
> 
> Romanian Feminine Genitive is:
> Rom. _capră _-> _caprei  _(which has evolved from Lat. _capra _+ illaei, where ILLAEI is the Genitive of ILLA definite article)
> Note that Aromanian has a Feminine Genitive like:
> _capral'ei_ (where_ l'_ denotes the palatalized L, like in Italian GLI)


The declension inherited from Latin is visible in feminine nouns, for exemple the declension of the words casă (house) and lipsă (lack of) where in the Genitive/Dative singular the words become case and lipse.
The declension (N/Ac, G/D and V) was also inherited in adjectives, articles and pronouns except personal pronouns.
On the other hand the personal pronouns are declined for 4 cases N, Ac, G and D. The vocative shares its forms with the nominative.


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## danielstan

Is not so simple to compare the modern Romanian with Latin and see what declension cases are "matching" and declare them as inherited from Latin.

Linguists use the "historical comparative method" to deduce the evolution of a language when documents are missing over the centuries.

Oldest surviving document in Romanian is from 1521, so not much use of it.
Comparison with Aromanian and other Romanian dialects from South of Danube could help.

I explained before and I reiterate why the masculine Genitive was NOT inherited from Latin:
- a Genitive inherited from Latin _*domini *_would have resulted in Romanian _*domni*_, which is the same as modern Romanian plural for _*domn/domni*_ (Nominative).
So, even before proto-Romanian ("common Romanian" spoken in the Balkans South and North of Danube, before Slavic invasion has separated the dialects) has emerged from Latin,
the Genitive _domini _would have disappeared, in order to avoid confusion.
I justify this sentence by the fact that Italian has also a masculine plural ending in *-i*, thus the uniformization of _-i_ plurals must have happened before the fall of Western Roman Empire (476 AD). Italian does not have a Genitive.

For the feminine Genitive modern Romanian has, indeed, a form:
"_a unei case_" which "matches" somehow the Latin Genitive _casae_
But the proper Romanian form is:
"_a casei_" which is not a match!
Observe that the final _-i_ (which came from ILLAEI) was transfered to _unei_ in the first form of Genitive.

The presence of ILLAEI in Romanian feminine Genitives is deduced by comparison to Aromanian ("_casal'ei_") and by the phonetic rule
L+I > I which was applicable, in some phonetic contexts, during the evolution of Daco-Romanian. The justification is out of the topic of this thread, but I will give 1 example of Aromanian - Romanian correspondent words:
Aromanian_ l'epure_ (_ljepure_) vs. Romanian _iepure  _(Aromanian has not a standard orthography: I find sometimes the notation *L'* for "palatalized L", other times the notation _*LJ*_ (from Serbo-Croatian written in Latin alphabet).

See also:
Romanian _a iubi_ < Slav. _ljubiti_

So we deduce this phonetic rule has acted upon Romanian after the Slavic invasion in Balkans and after the separation of Daco-Romanian from Aromanian which happened approx. in X-XI centuries.
----------------
Romanian declension system was influenced by the enclitic (post-posed) definite article (inherited from Latin demonstrative pronoun ILLE).
As I said before:
Romanian Genitive _domnului _< Lat. _dominus + illui_
Rom. Genitive _casei _< Lat. _casa + illaei_
while Classical Latin did not have a definite article at all.

Observe the 2 masculine Vocative forms in Romanian:
_omule_! < Lat. _homo _+ _ille _(the definite article from ILLE has influenced Romanian Vocative!)
_doamne_! < Lat. Vocative _domine_!

So we could not say the Romanian Genitive was inherited from Latin. It has been *developed *using Latin inherited words.

Other Romance languages use proclitic (pre-posed) definite article and this could be a reason why they did not developed a 3 case declension system like Romanian.


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## Caktus

danielstan said:


> Is not so simple to compare the modern Romanian with Latin and see what declension cases are "matching" and declare them as inherited from Latin.
> 
> Linguists use the "historical comparative method" to deduce the evolution of a language when documents are missing over the centuries.
> 
> Oldest surviving document in Romanian is from 1521, so not much use of it.
> Comparison with Aromanian and other Romanian dialects from South of Danube could help.
> 
> I explained before and I reiterate why the masculine Genitive was NOT inherited from Latin:
> - a Genitive inherited from Latin _*domini *_would have resulted in Romanian _*domni*_, which is the same as modern Romanian plural for _*domn/domni*_ (Nominative).
> So, even before proto-Romanian ("common Romanian" spoken in the Balkans South and North of Danube, before Slavic invasion has separated the dialects) has emerged from Latin,
> the Genitive _domini _would have disappeared, in order to avoid confusion.
> I justify this sentence by the fact that Italian has also a masculine plural ending in *-i*, thus the uniformization of _-i_ plurals must have happened before the fall of Western Roman Empire (476 AD). Italian does not have a Genitive.
> 
> For the feminine Genitive modern Romanian has, indeed, a form:
> "_a unei case_" which "matches" somehow the Latin Genitive _casae_
> But the proper Romanian form is:
> "_a casei_" which is not a match!
> Observe that the final _-i_ (which came from ILLAEI) was transfered to _unei_ in the first form of Genitive.


I think you are making a confusion. I read quite a few books and they all state that for Romanian singular feminine nouns the G/D form was inherited from Latin.
Please leave aside the definite article, as in this form the article is declined not the noun itself.
And what do you mean by "the proper Romanian form is:"_a casei_" which is not a match!"?
"a unei case", "a acestei case" are all "very" proper Romanian and they translate in English as "of a house", "of this house".
Also in the adjective the feminine singular forms are inherited from Latin but also interesting plural forms like: (N/Ac) mulți/multe --> multor (G/D).


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## irinet

danielstan said:


> after the separation of *Daco-Romanian* from Aromanian which happened approx. *in X-XI centuries*.



I am a bit confused of this statement, really .


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## diana l

danielstan said:


> Well, I am not linguist, but I will put here my observations on the matter, from the literature I read so far.
> 
> From Dacian language we have no conclusive words or sentences attested, only some toponymes and a list of 47 medicinal plants cited by Dioscorides.
> All the conjectures made in Romanian philology about Romanian words of Dacian origin are based on cognates from Albanian language.
> Nothing useful in Albanian for the problem of case declension in Romanian.
> 
> In the Balkans even before proto-Romanian language emerged from Vulgar Latin, the final _*-m*_ and _*-s*_ have disappeared from the Latin words.
> Attestations can be found in the work _De Aedificiis_ (by Procopius of Cesarea) probably written in 560 AD. There are some toponymes without final_ -s_ or _-m_ in it:
> Asilva (< Lat. Ad Silvam), Burgualtu (Lat. Burgus Altus) etc.
> 
> 1) the Nominative/Accusative case in Romanian.
> Romanian, as most of the Romance languages, have inherited their Latin nouns from Accusative form, in the vast majority of the cases.
> E.g.
> Lat. _canis _(Nom.)/_canem _(Acc.) > Rom. _cîine_, It. _cane_
> For the nouns like Lat. _lupus _(Nom.)/_lupum _(Acc.) the merge Nominative-Accusative was produced since the Vulgar Latin stage and could have been a stimulus for merging these cases on all nouns.
> 
> The merging of Nominative with Accusative is an evolution that happened in all Romance languages, so probably it was there before Romance languages emerged.
> 
> 2) Vocative
> Romanian has inherited the Latin masculine vocative in the word
> Rom. _dumnezeu _< Lat. _Domine Deus_ (_domine _is Vocative for _dominus_)
> 
> Romanian masculine Vocative has 2 forms:
> - for names: _Ion _("John") -> _Ioane _(Vocative), Stefan -> Stefane (Voc.)
> - for common nouns: _lup _("wolf") -> _lupule _< Lat. _lupum _+ _ille (_but there is a regional variant, archaic_: lupe_ which corresponds to the Latin Vocative_ lupe < lupus)
> _
> The Romanian masculine Vocative, by coincidence, has the same_ -e_ ending like the Slavic one:
> _Ivan -> Ivane (_Vocative, Bulgarian)
> Probably the Slavic Vocative was a stimulus for preserving the Latin Vocative in Romanian.
> 
> Feminine Vocative in standard Romanian has an -o ending, imported from South Slavic.
> E.g.
> Ana -> Ano (Vocative)
> fata -> fato (Vocative)
> There is present, in Banat and other regions, the feminine vocative in -ă ending:
> Ana -> Ană
> This kind of feminine Vocative is not inherited from Latin.
> 
> 3) Genitive/Dative
> The masculine Genitive in Latin was:
> Lat. _dominus _-> _domini _(see the expression _Anno Domini_)
> Romanian Genitive is:
> Rom. _domn _-> _domnului _(< Lat. _dominus _+ _illui_; where ILLUI is the Genitive of ILLE)
> 
> So, the Romanian Genitive is not directly inherited from Latin Genitive, but is based on the definite article ILLE which has developed in all Romance languages.
> 
> Romanian Feminine Genitive is:
> Rom. _capră _-> _caprei  _(which has evolved from Lat. _capra _+ illaei, where ILLAEI is the Genitive of ILLA definite article)
> Note that Aromanian has a Feminine Genitive like:
> _capral'ei_ (where_ l'_ denotes the palatalized L, like in Italian GLI)
> 
> The merge of Genitive and Dativ in Romanian is, most probably, a linguistic phenomen related to Balkan Sprachbund (Balkan Linguistic Union), as this feature is encountered in other Balkanic languages like Bulgarian, modern Greek and so.
> 
> 
> In conculsion, the Romanian 3 case declension is the result of many influences, starting with Classical Latin, then Vulgar Latin which has grammaticalized the demonstrative pronoun ILLE as definite article, Slavic influence and Balkanic influence.
> 
> 
> 
> -----------
> Relatively to the question of this thread:
> - there are no positive facts of 5 case declension in Old Romanian
> The oldest surviving document in Romanian is from 1521 AD( "Neacsu's letter") and there are significant Romanian religious texts from XVI century. They don't attest a different system of declension than the one of today. They do attest an older form of Feminine Genitive in Romanian ("mameei" instead of today "mamei"), but not much difference.
> 
> Other researches have been done by comparing Daco-Romanian (Romanian dialect spoken in Romania and Republic of Moldova) to Aromanian, Megleno-Romanian and Istro-Romanian dialects spoken South of Danube.
> Nothing found to change the paradigm of 3 case system.




Thank you for answering.
That's interesting, My two cents is probably even say back when Romance Languages started getting recognized as their own distinct languages from Latin throughout Europe, it probably had all 3 cases maybe Nom/Acc were separate but from what I've read (various sites from Wikipedia, yes I know and other sites about Romance Languages that I can't remember from the top of my head), claim that it seems that Genitive and Dative cases were merging or being dropped altogether as the Romance languages arose or some have said something along the lines of, that Gen/Dative was starting too lose meaning even during the VL spoken while the Roman Empire was around due to all the sound changes and what not.

That reminds me though, you mention: "The merging of Nominative with Accusative is an evolution that happened in all Romance languages, so probably it was there before Romance languages emerged." And since aside from Latin itself, close proximity to Slavic/Balkan languages have been major factors in why Romanian kept a case system around, French/Gallo-Romance languages kept a 2 case system Nom/Oblique with the Olbique being a lot like Accusative. If Romanian had a case system and the case system survived around due to it's neighbors, is it possible that French/Gallo-Romance kept a 2 case system because of it's close proximity with Germanic languages? Sorry if this is kind of off topic.


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## danielstan

Caktus said:


> I think you are making a confusion. I read quite a few books and they all state that for Romanian singular feminine nouns the G/D form was inherited from Latin.
> Please leave aside the definite article, as in this form the article is declined not the noun itself.
> And what do you mean by "the proper Romanian form is:"_a casei_" which is not a match!"?
> "a unei case", "a acestei case" are all "very" proper Romanian and they translate in English as "of a house", "of this house".



First of all I agree there are many forms of Genitive in Romanian. Let's see the Genitive of Romanian "fată": 
1) _cartea fet*ei*_ = "the book of the girl"
2) _cartea unei fet*e*_ = "the book of a girl"
3)_ cartea acestei fet*e* _= "the book of this girl"
You say the Genitive forms to be considered should be 2) and 3) where the termination -e is inherited from a Latin feminine Genitive like _casae_.

I said the Genitive form to be considered is 1) and from here our paths are diverging.

But, for the sake of discussion, let's apply your ideas for masculine Genitives of Romanian "om":
1) _cartea omu*lui*_ = "the book of the man"
2) _cartea unui om _= "the book of a man"
3) _cartea acestui om_ = "the book of this man"
If you consider the Genitive forms for masculine to be 2) and 3) you come to the conclusion that Romanian masculine Genitive is merged with N./Acc. !



Caktus said:


> Also in the adjective the feminine singular forms are inherited from Latin but also interesting plural forms like: (N/Ac) mulți/multe --> multor (G/D).



The interesting plural forms you mentioned are exceptions from the norm.
Most of the Romanian adjectives have the following forms:
(N/Acc) _frumoși_/_frumoase _(masc./fem.) --> _frumoși_*lor*_/frumoase_*lor *(G/D)
(N/Acc) _buni_/_bune_(masc./fem.) --> _buni*lor*/bune_*lor *(G/D)
where _*lor *_< Lat. ILLORUM (Genitive plural of ILLE)

-----------------
You said before "let's leave aside the definite article" when debating on Romanian Genitives.
I reply: "we cannot leave it aside"

Let's observe the following forms of Genitives applied on NOUN + ADJECTIVE or on ADJECTIVE + NOUN in Romanian:

"the book of the man good" = _cartea omu*lui *bun_ (< Lat. _homo + illui + bonus_)
"the book of the good man" = _cartea bunu*lui* om _(< Lat. _bonus + illui + homo_)

We see that the place of ILLE between NOUN and ADJECTIVE has been a norm in Romanian since Vulgar Latin.


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## danielstan

diana l said:


> Thank you for answering.
> That's interesting, My two cents is probably even say back when Romance Languages started getting recognized as their own distinct languages from Latin throughout Europe, it probably had all 3 cases maybe Nom/Acc were separate but from what I've read (various sites from Wikipedia, yes I know and other sites about Romance Languages that I can't remember from the top of my head), claim that it seems that Genitive and Dative cases were merging or being dropped altogether as the Romance languages arose or some have said something along the lines of, that Gen/Dative was starting too lose meaning even during the VL spoken while the Roman Empire was around due to all the sound changes and what not.
> 
> That reminds me though, you mention: "The merging of Nominative with Accusative is an evolution that happened in all Romance languages, so probably it was there before Romance languages emerged." And since aside from Latin itself, close proximity to Slavic/Balkan languages have been major factors in why Romanian kept a case system around, French/Gallo-Romance languages kept a 2 case system Nom/Oblique with the Olbique being a lot like Accusative. If Romanian had a case system and the case system survived around due to it's neighbors, is it possible that French/Gallo-Romance kept a 2 case system because of it's close proximity with Germanic languages? Sorry if this is kind of off topic.


The modern French that I know has 1 case system, id est the noun does not change its termination according to the case.
Maybe you read something about Old French...
And I don't see how the fact that Romanian was influenced by its neighbors (Bulgarian, Albanian, probably Greek) can be reflected in the fact that French was influenced by its Germanic neighboring languages. If French has developed a feature similar to Romanian due to its neighbors it is because of the hazard in language evolution.

Anyway, to answer your ideas:
- the neighbor languages to Romanian probably (it's hard to prove a coincidence on Slavic/Romanian masculine Vocative has helped) have helped the preservation of Vocative case and surely the Slavic feminine Vocative ending in -o has been imported by Romanian.
Influence from neighboring languages is acquired, normally, by bilinguals from target language who learn a grammatical feature from source language and "translate" it literally in their mother language.

But what about the Genitive/Dative? 
As I explained in other posts, the presence of Latin demonstrative noun ILLE in all constructions of Genitive in Romanian (ILLUI, ILLAEI, ILLORUM) is the main factor that lead to a Genitive/Dative in Romanian, not the neighbors.
The Balkan Sprachbund (Balkan Linguistic Union) is a set of similar features present in some Balkan languages, among them being the merging of Dative with Genitive. 
But apart from this merging no other Balkan language has a similar way of constructing the Genitive like Romanian: Balkan sprachbund - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


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## diana l

danielstan said:


> The modern French that I know has 1 case system, id est the noun does not change its termination according to the case.
> Maybe you read something about Old French...
> And I don't see how the fact that Romanian was influenced by its neighbors (Bulgarian, Albanian, probably Greek) can be reflected in the fact that French was influenced by its Germanic neighboring languages. If French has developed a feature similar to Romanian due to its neighbors it is because of the hazard in language evolution.
> 
> Anyway, to answer your ideas:
> - the neighbor languages to Romanian probably (it's hard to prove a coincidence on Slavic/Romanian masculine Vocative has helped) have helped the preservation of Vocative case and surely the Slavic feminine Vocative ending in -o has been imported by Romanian.
> Influence from neighboring languages is acquired, normally, by bilinguals from target language who learn a grammatical feature from source language and "translate" it literally in their mother language.
> 
> But what about the Genitive/Dative?
> As I explained in other posts, the presence of Latin demonstrative noun ILLE in all constructions of Genitive in Romanian (ILLUI, ILLAEI, ILLORUM) is the main factor that lead to a Genitive/Dative in Romanian, not the neighbors.
> The Balkan Sprachbund (Balkan Linguistic Union) is a set of similar features present in some Balkan languages, among them being the merging of Dative with Genitive.
> But apart from this merging no other Balkan language has a similar way of constructing the Genitive like Romanian: Balkan sprachbund - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia



Yeah I meant Old French haha. Anyways, thanks again for explaining!


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## Caktus

danielstan said:


> First of all I agree there are many forms of Genitive in Romanian. Let's see the Genitive of Romanian "fată":
> 1) _cartea fet*ei*_ = "the book of the girl"
> 2) _cartea unei fet*e*_ = "the book of a girl"
> 3)_ cartea acestei fet*e* _= "the book of this girl"
> You say the Genitive forms to be considered should be 2) and 3) where the termination -e is inherited from a Latin feminine Genitive like _casae_.
> 
> I said the Genitive form to be considered is 1) and from here our paths are diverging.
> 
> But, for the sake of discussion, let's apply your ideas for masculine Genitives of Romanian "om":
> 1) _cartea omu*lui*_ = "the book of the man"
> 2) _cartea unui om _= "the book of a man"
> 3) _cartea acestui om_ = "the book of this man"
> If you consider the Genitive forms for masculine to be 2) and 3) you come to the conclusion that Romanian masculine Genitive is merged with N./Acc. !


Romanian has 2 tipes of noun declension : aticulated (which did not exist in Latin) and not articulated (which inherits from Latin the feminine singular G/D form and the masculine Vocative).



danielstan said:


> The interesting plural forms you mentioned are exceptions from the norm.
> Most of the Romanian adjectives have the following forms:
> (N/Acc) _frumoși_/_frumoase _(masc./fem.) --> _frumoși_*lor*_/frumoase_*lor *(G/D)
> (N/Acc) _buni_/_bune_(masc./fem.) --> _buni*lor*/bune_*lor *(G/D)
> where _*lor *_< Lat. ILLORUM (Genitive plural of ILLE)


You are mixing up articulated forms (N/Acc) and non articulated forms (G/D). In Romanian when the adjective is placed before the noun it gets the article:
_frumoși_*lor*_/frumoase_*lor *are the articulated G/D forms for _frumoși*i*/frumoase_*le *(N/Acc).


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## robbie_SWE

Since we've kind of touched on the subject of the Romanian vocative, I can't help but wonder why there are two vocative forms for feminine nouns in the singular and which one is preferred? According to DEX, you can just as well say *fată* instead of *fato*, *femeie* instead of *femeio*, and *casă* instead of *caso*.

Having two forms is apparently also true for some masculine nouns: *băiatule* vs. *băiete*, *bărbatule *vs. *bărbate*, but not *fiu* (< only *fiule*). 

I personally always considered the feminine vocative ending _-o_ representing the feminine indefinite article used enclitically.

I'm under the impression that the vocative has always been the weakest of all cases – a remnant; a regionalism which shouldn't be used in elevated modern speech.

Is the Romanian vocative disappearing?


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## danielstan

Well, indeed the Romanian vocative is disappearing, but the process is slow, so slow that I don't see its ending in 1 or 2 generations... but this is my personal impression.

For names, surely I remarked the disappearence of the vocative in the every day speech, on the street.
In my region (Pitesti, 100 km from Bucharest - we speak with the same accent as in Bucharest and the deviations from standard Romanian are minimal), I hear on the street, for example:
"- Ana, vino aici!" ("Ana, come here!") where Ana is nominative
and I have never heard "- Ano, vino aici!", neither "- Ană, vino aici!"
In fact, from what I read and already mentioned, the vocative "- Ană!" is regional, in Banat and possibly other regions.
The termination *-o*, as I read from some linguists, is a typical Slavic termination for feminine vocative. Anyway, I don't feel the* -o* is the indefinite article.

From another point of view, I remember the song "Ana lugojana" (composed by Filaret Barbu, born in Banat) with lyrics like:
"Că n-am venit la voi la şură, An*o*, lugojan*o*
Să mă uit pe sub căciulă, An*o*, lugojan*o*"

In elevated speech (on TV, for example):
"- Doamn*ă* profesoară!" / "- Domnule profesor!"
On the street, even in the classroom, I hear more often:
"- Doamn*a* profesoară!" / "- Domnul profesor!", but more often: "- Domnu' profesor!"  (the masculine definite article *-L* has already disappeared from spoken Romanian and is still used in elevated speech; the termination* -u'* is enough to distinguish articulated vs. non articulated masculine nouns)
I never heard:
"- Doamn*o* profesoară!"


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## diana l

In my experience, which isn't much, the vocative case is a more "archaic" feature that's only used in everyday speech depending on the person or so I've been told. I know two people (everyone else I know who speaks a romance language fluently speaks French obviously) who speak Romanian don't actually use the case they told me when they try to speak it to me.

I know they don't speak for everyone but that's just my two cents.


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## irinet

1.Well, as the Vocative is still studied in the Romanian grammar curriculum, and it's 'fully' tested / refreshed in the National Exams every year, I cannot say how it could be _archaic _or _extinct soon. _

2. More, the Vocative is also to be mentioned in _poetry as a distinctive mark of the lyrical ego/monologue.
_
3. In point of the type of discourse, the Vocative use can be a hint to start with if the pupils need analyse a text at first reading to see if that's a _dialogue_ or a _monologue_.


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## irinet

danielstan said:


> In elevated speech (on TV, for example):
> "- Doamn*ă* profesoară!" / "- Domnule profesor!"
> On the street, even in the classroom, I hear more often:
> "- Doamn*a* profesoară!" / "
> I never heard:
> "- Doamn*o* profesoară!"



I wouldn't say that the TV discourse *is academic, but it should.
*
However, there's a more complex idea here related to Morpho-Syntax: '-*a*' versus '-*o*' that links to the Mood of the verb, punctuation and place in a sentence, etc., but I suppose that's a new topic and it's not to be continued here starting with post 16.


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## danielstan

irinet said:


> 1.Well, as the Vocative is still studied in the Romanian grammar curriculum, and it's 'fully' tested / refreshed in the National Exams every year, I cannot say how it could be _archaic _or _extinct soon. _
> 
> 2. More, the Vocative is also to be mentioned in _poetry as a distinctive mark of the lyrical ego/monologue.
> _
> 3. In point of the type of discourse, the Vocative use can be a hint to start with if the pupils need analyse a text at first reading to see if that's a _dialogue_ or a _monologue_.



Oh, what an argumentation!

According to you the Romanian Vocative case will not disappear from the language (spoken Romanian, to be exact) because it is taught in schools...
When I read this I think at Appendix Probi - a text where Probus was teaching the Romans how to spell correctly some Latin words, because they spelled as they *pronounced* them.
Romance languages have inherited the "wrong" versions of the words mentioned by Probius, despite his effort!

E.g. (Appendix Probi)

_calida non calda_

and Romanian language has inherited the wrong Latin version: _caldă_!


Now, going serious, Romanian is in a continuous evolution, like any language, and is possible that in the future some grammatical features to disappear from it (in centuries!), some new features to be developed.
For the sake of discussion I will describe the evolution of Romanian masculin definite article -_*L *_(-_*UL*_):

In the oldest surviving Romanian document ("Neacșu's letter") the name of the author was spelled, with Cyrillic alphabet, "Neacș*ul*".
In Romanian medieval documents I have seen the name Rad*ul *("IO Rad*ul* voevod").
In Serbia there is a place called Radula, which proves the Serbs have adapted the medieval Romanian name Rad*ul* to their language.
In XIX century there were names like Dimitrie Onci*ul *and Aron Pumn*ul*.

Today Romanians spell and pronounce: Neacșu, Radu. The *-L *has disappeared from Romanian names which represents an articulated word.

For the common nouns Romanian language spells with final *-L*, while the people usually do not pronounce it. I notice this when I speak with my friends on general topics in a private situation.
Of course, the actors will pronounce correctly the final *-L* on the stage, the politicians will make effort to speak correctly, the TV presenters will follow the academical norms.
But probably in few centuries that final *-L *will disappear totally from speech and an orthographic reform will remove it from spelling, too.

The final *-U *will be sufficient to distinguish an articulated noun from a non articulated one.


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## irinet

First of all, I've thought that we are dealing with the present and the past of the Romanian language, things that we should know about _more _ than the present of the next centuries' generations and their evolution, and what they'll choose to use or have, and which, obviously, we'll not be living.

Secondly, we are writing _optzeci _but say _obzeci . _What does this prove for future?

Thirdly, these clear-cut distinctions prove that languages differ in _writing _and in _speaking as well. Humans first uttered sounds, which gathered together to create words, then 'pasted' those to sentences . Much later, they invented writing, right? Did this come by itself or with a new language system different from that of speech?! _

So, which one is older and more experienced?! 

For instance, can we say whether Japan will soon disappear due to the mega-earthquakes of the Euro-Asian plates?

No.

So can we not predict such things about what you are saying above without solid scientific proofs. Because Mihai Viteazu was saying "_hotaru_ Ardealului", and now we still have the same phonetic habit.

On the other hand, I still don't get what proto-Romanian is exactly?!
Is it Old Romanian, is it before Romanian existed, is it Dacian, Thracian, Roman, all of those ancestors?!


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## danielstan

I discuss first the problem of Romanian definite article.

First a little theory about writing an speaking a language:

When the Romans have invented the Latin alphabet (which was derived from Greek alphabet) they tried as much as possible to define a separate symbol for each phonem (disctinctive sound) in their language at that moment.
Later the Latin language evolved and new sounds appeared in it, for which the alphabet was not good to represent them.
Due to the tradition of writing (only the educated people knew to read and write and they were a tiny percentage of the entire population)
the Romans were reluctant to invent new letters for new sounds, so usually they used old letters in combinations for representing new sounds.
Concrete examples:
Latin initially did not had the sound /ts/ (Romanian "ț") and they used the combination [tz] to represent it.
How do we know about this?
In Late antiquity there are inscriptions like Bonifatzio (< Bonifacius).
Also some Latin grammarians like Velius Longus have written that words like _iustitia_ are pronounced like /tz/ in the last syllable.

But how can we know today if the Latin alphabet matched perfectly the Latin speaking?
Some indications can be obtained by Latin words imported by other languages which preserved over centuries as much as possible the original pronunciation.
Latin word _Caesar_ is pronounced today [cezar], thus the goup /ae/ is pronunced [e].
German word _Kaiser_ (< Latin _Caesar_) shows that at some time the Latin group /ae/ was pronounced as a diphtong.
Romanian interjection _vai_! (< Latin _vae_!) shows the same thing, although this interjection is too short to be conclusive (could have evolved over centuries in Romanian).

Coming to Romanian masculine definite article marked with the termination *-UL *(e.g. _lupul_, _omul_).
There are few indications that the final -L was pronounced in Middle Ages:
- as I said before, the Serbian place named Radula (I found it cited in _Istoria limbii române_, by Al. Rosetti, page 416-417) shows that the Serbs heard the Romanian name _Radul_ with final -L and derived a feminine form of it _Radula_.
- in Aromanian the typical masculine definite article is marked by* -LU *terminantion (see the Aromanian sentence "_Armân*lu* nu cheari!_" (= Romanian_ "Aromânul nu piere!" ; _= English _"The Aromanian does not die!"_) which is written on walls by anonymous guys in Romania)

The Aromanian in comparisson with Romanian confirm the origin of the definite masculine article.
Reconstruction:
Classical Latin _lupus ille bonus_ (literally "wolf this good") > in Accusative form: _lupum illum bonum _(Note: Romance languages usually inherited the Accusative form from Latin)
> Vulgar Latin _*lupu *illu *bonu_ (the demonstrative pronoun ILLE has been grammaticalized as definite article in Late Antiquity because now is used in inherited forms in all Romance languages)
> proto-Romanian _*lupulu *bonu _   (the asterisk marks reconstructed words, not attested in writing, thus hypothetical words)
> Romanian _lupul bun_, Aromanian _luplu bun_

Note: Romanian uses as a norm the sintax NOUN + ADJECTIVE (the reverse form ADJ. + NOUN is used to amplify the quality expressed by the adjective). This is the main cause that lead to an enclitic (post-posed) definite article in Romanian.

So for sure at some point in the evolution of Romanian the final -L was pronounced and its pronunciation lasted for centuries.
The disappearence of final -L is a phenomenon attested in writing sporadically from XVIII century and more accelerated from XIX century on (when the proper names like Radu, Odobescu are written without final -L).

Observe in the reconstructed evolution above that the non-articulated words like Romanian _lup_
have evolved from Latin as:
Latin _lupum_ (accusative) > Vulgar Latin *_lupu_ > Romanian _lup_
We don't know in what centuries the transition _*lupu > lup _has happened, but before this transition the final* -L* in Romanian_ lupul_ MUST have been pronounced in order to distinguish the articulated vs. non-articulated form of the word.
Then, after the non-articulated form_ lup _has been established in Romanian it took some centuries until Romanians started to drop the final *-L* from the pronunciation of the articulated form:_ lupul > lupu'._
From now on there is no impediment for the final *-L *to disappear for good from pronunciation and when this will happen, in centuries from now on, the Romanian orthography will most probably be revised to match the Romanian pronunciation.

That's an educated guess for the future evolution of the language!

Bibliography_:
Alexandru Rosetti, Istoria limbii române,_ final edition 1986_ -_ Al-Rosetti-Istoria-Limbii-Romane-1986.pdf

page 134 Morfologia - Articolul
page 134 Sintaxa - Articolul
page 321 Romana comuna
page 352 Romana comuna - Articolul
page 425 Sec. XIII, XIV, XV - Articolul
page 494 Sec. XVI - Articolul


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## irinet

1) I suppose that the evolution of the definite article from _ille _is complex and under continuous research about its various functions as of ( a) localizer; b) specifier): The Evolution of the Definite Article and the Genitive in Old Romanian

2) Also I think we should either take into consideration the presence of (_phonemic_)_ homonymy_ when dealing with:

Old final *'-u' *either present in Nominal Gs, but in VPs as well: '*au făcutu' *, etc.
different case-categories, like in *'O prietenă dragă *(N) mi-a scris recent.'; ' Am *o prietenă dragă' *(Acc)*; *'*Prietenă dragă *(Vocative)*, *hai la o cafea!'.
One more time, I think that the present topic has been split into three different sub-topics (1. Proto-Romanian Cases; 2. Questioning about the Vocative; 3. The Romanian Article Inquiry: Back to the Origins.), so should these 2 and 3 be moved back to the _Romanian Thread?_


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## irinet

danielstan said:


> Oh, what an argumentation!
> 
> According to you the Romanian Vocative case will not disappear from the language (spoken Romanian, to be exact) because it is taught in schools...



To my arguments that sustain the idea that the Vocative is not archaic, more, the Vocative use is shown in various discursive instances in literature classes - a kind of _show and tell (teaching strategy) of what that is that is shown_.
When using Vocative, people don't do it consciously as, for instance, they don't think that when calling someone by his/her name they are using the Vocative! So, people don't use it because it is taught in schools. True, they might become aware of it.


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