# -itanum > -etano, -itano from Latin to Italian



## Catagrapha

Is -itano (e.g. palermitano, salernitano) the result of unstressed long -itanum, whereas -etano (e.g. napoletano, anconetano) the result of unstressed short -itanum?

I'm aware of one example of Latin unstressed short i > Italian e: hospitalis > ospedale.

And since _ospedale _is inherited, _ospitale _is borrowed, is -itano borrowed, whereas -etano inherited? But _anconetano _seems borrowed in contrast to the seemingly inherited _agontano_


----------



## symposium

Hi! I don't think there is a rule, but:
-"napolitano" and "anconitano" are also possible. "Napolitano" sounds very old fashioned, while I believe "anconitano" is even more common than "anconetano".
-I don't think it depends on language evolution. All those different forms are possible, but the ones that are deemed to sound better are more used and preferred, in the end. "Palermetano" definitely doesn't sound better than "palermitano", so it's not used. "Napoletano" is now preferred to "napolitano" which used to be the more common form up until a century ago, roughly.


----------



## Sobakus

This is the result of a lot of variation, both within and between varieties.

I'm referring to Rohlfs 1966 (_Grammatica storica... _I) p. 173. Florentine generally raised the unstressed non-final /e/ to /i/, also in the pretonic position where it can come from Latin /e/ (_ripetere, diventare_), while this is absent from most other varieties (Arezzo and Umbrian _femena, termene, giovene_); some Tuscan varieties have /a/ in this position (_giovane, cronaca_). In southern Lazio you again find _sabbito, stommico_, and further to the south there's a lot of variation between /a,e,i,u/, while in some varieties, including in Sicily, this vowel harmonises with the following one, e.g. _arburu–arbiri, persaca–perseche_. In Neapolitan (Campanian) this vowel has been reduced to a filler schwa, but is traditionally spelled E; Rohlfs thinks that it was also harmonising at some stage because of the metaphonic diphthongisation (_muonëcë < monici < monacī_ or whatever) - Neapolitan has passed through several consecutive stages of unstressed vowel mergers.

Latin influence is also very likely, since many words meaning "inhabitant of place x" are Latinisms.


----------



## Olaszinhok

symposium said:


> I believe "anconitano" is even more common than "anconetano".


No, I am sorry. It's the other way round.


----------



## Linnets

Catagrapha said:


> I'm aware of one example of Latin unstressed short i > Italian e: hospitalis > ospedale.
> 
> And since _ospedale _is inherited, _ospitale _is borrowed


No, _ospitale_ is actually the expected (and attested) Tuscan form; _ospedale_ or _spedale _is the Northern-influenced form, now Standard Italian.


----------



## Catagrapha

Linnets said:


> No, _ospitale_ is actually the expected (and attested) Tuscan form; _ospedale_ or _spedale _is the Northern-influenced form, now Standard Italian.


Are there other examples of Latin unstressed short i > standard Italian e like hospitalis > ospedale?

There are many examples of Latin stressed short i > Italian e, e.g., arista > resta,  firmus > fermo, -itia > -ezza


----------



## Linnets

Catagrapha said:


> Are there other examples of Latin unstressed short i > standard Italian e like hospitalis > ospedale?


I made a mistake: _ospitale_ is a Latinism because Latin short _i _> Italian_ e_; _ospedale_ is Northern-influenced because of -_d_- instead of -_t_- but the vocalism is standard; the Tuscan expected form would have been *_ospetale_, unattested to my knoweldge.



Catagrapha said:


> There are many examples of Latin stressed short i > Italian e, e.g., arista > resta,  firmus > fermo, -itia > -ezza


Generally speaking, Latin short _i_ [ɪ] (and Latin long _e_ [eː]) > Italian_ e _[e] stressed or not; the exceptions are Latinisms, that preserve [i] sound of Scholastic Pronunciation of Latin; some cases are yet to be explained, e.g. Latin_ nĭvem _> Florentine_ néve _but Pisan _nève _and Spanish _nieve_, that imply an unattested *_nĕvem._


----------



## Olaszinhok

Linnets said:


> Latin _nĭvem _> Florentine_ néve_ but Pisan _nève_ and Spanish _nieve_, that imply an unattested *_nĕvem_.


This is a bit off-topic but both Standard Catalan_ neu_ and Portuguese _neve_ are pronounced with an open-mid ɛ, unlike standard Italian e. Also in other words the stressed _e _is open in the above Iberian languages, while it is closed in Standard Italian. I find these differences to be rather tricky.


----------



## Penyafort

Olaszinhok said:


> This is a bit off-topic but both Standard Catalan_ neu_ and Portuguese _neve_ are pronounced with an open-mid ɛ, unlike standard Italian e. Also in other words the stressed _e _is open in the above Iberian languages, while it is closed in Standard Italian. I find these differences to be rather tricky.


_Neu _is closed in Standard Catalan. (In fact, evolution of Vulgar Latin E is more or less regular but complicated in Catalan, as it has different evolutions depending on the variety. Grosso modo, it goes like this.)


----------



## Olaszinhok

Penyafort said:


> _Neu _is closed in Standard Catalan.


Opps my mistake. neu - Viccionari
You are obviously right but I have heard oftentimes nɛu too. I don't know where the speakers were from.


----------



## Penyafort

Olaszinhok said:


> Opps my mistake. neu - Viccionari
> You are obviously right but I have heard oftentimes nɛu too. I don't know where the speakers were from.


Theoretically speaking, as you can see in the picture, they could be speakers from Pallarès, Ribagorçà or Rossellonès.

In practice, I've noticed many speakers, even TV hosts, mispronouncing e's and o's, so they could actually be from anywhere.


----------



## merquiades

Penyafort said:


> Theoretically speaking, as you can see in the picture, they could be speakers from Pallarès, Ribagorçà or Rossellonès.
> 
> In practice, I've noticed many speakers, even TV hosts, mispronouncing e's and o's, so they could actually be from anywhere.


Possibly the _u _could have closed the vowel to _néu_, and now the influence of Spanish _ie_ is reopening it to _nèu_.
Though no words come to mind right now (letteratura, Paola...), I've noticed a general trend that unstressed "i" and "u" (compared to most other languages, at least) are consistently "e" and "o" in Italian. So much so, it's expected.  
In Spanish it's consistenty _itáno_.


----------



## Catagrapha

merquiades said:


> Though no words come to mind right now (letteratura, Paola...), I've noticed a general trend that unstressed "i" and "u" (compared to most other languages, at least) are consistently "e" and "o" in Italian. So much so, it's expected.


I suspect _letteratura _is influenced by the stressed Latin short littera > Italian lettera.
From _sinistrum_, two forms are supposedly older than _sinistro_: _sinestro _and _senestro_. Is _senestro _older than _sinestro_?

But unstressed Latin short i seems to be i in standard Italian more often than not, in contrast to the stressed Latin short i rather often becoming e, e.g., dominica > domenica, pigritia > pigrezza


----------



## Sobakus

Linnets said:


> I made a mistake: _ospitale_ is a Latinism because Latin short _i _> Italian_ e_; _ospedale_ is Northern-influenced because of -_d_- instead of -_t_- but the vocalism is standard; the Tuscan expected form would have been *_ospetale_, unattested to my knoweldge.
> 
> Generally speaking, Latin short _i_ [ɪ] (and Latin long _e_ [eː]) > Italian_ e _[e] stressed or not; the exceptions are Latinisms, that preserve [i] sound of Scholastic Pronunciation of Latin; some cases are yet to be explained, e.g. Latin_ nĭvem _> Florentine_ néve _but Pisan _nève _and Spanish _nieve_, that imply an unattested *_nĕvem._


But I've already explained that Florentine, and hence Standard Italian raises non-final unstressed /e/ of any origin to /i/. The evidence for Latin provenance of _ospitale_ is that it doesn't seem to occur in non-literary varieties in this form - either the initial vowel is missing or the /t/ is voiced to /d/ (map 709, forms listed on the left). But this can be explained in other ways, for example the _o-_ could have been reintroduced/maintaned by the influence of _ospite, ospe_. I see no reason to doubt that _ospedale_ is a borrowing from Northern Italian and is not Tuscan or Florentine.


----------



## Penyafort

merquiades said:


> In Spanish it's consistenty _itáno_.


Which is also a learned word, like the -ense suffix for the inherited -és.


----------



## merquiades

Penyafort said:


> Which is also a learned word, like the -ense suffix for the inherited -és.


So Napolitano and Gaditano ought to be *Napoledán or *Napledán and *Gadedán or *Gaedán?


----------



## Penyafort

merquiades said:


> So Napolitano and Gaditano ought to be *Napoledán or *Napledán and *Gadedán or *Gaedán?


The thing is, there is -ano, -és, -ino, -eño... but not really an inherited one from -itano, so those coming from -itanus must be _cultismos_. If we hypothesize about the possible outcomes of the inherited names in Spanish from Napolem and Gades (Nábole? Gais? Gaís? Gues?), we would get demonyms such as nabolano/nabolino/nabolés/naboleño and gaisano/gaisés/etc.

The fact that gaditano has that g- instead of the c- (from the Arabization of Gades to Qa:dis) shows even clearlier that it's a cultismo. Napolitano might be this too, or either a word borrowed straight from Italian/Neapolitan or via the Catalan _napolità_, borrowed from Italian/Neapolitan already in Muntaner's Chronicle (1328).


----------

