# Romance imperfect in -ie-



## francisgranada

Hello,

In an other thread we have been speaking about the Romance imperfect, namely about the forms without *b/v *in the verbs in -_ere _and -_ire, _e.g. It. archaic/regional _tem*ea*, ven*ia*_, ... Sp. _tem*ía*, ven*ía*_ ... 

Now, in the old written documents we find also forms in _-ie-_ instead of _-ia/ea-,_ including the conditional. Examples:

Divina Commedia of Dante
_sì av*ieno* inviscate l'ali sue ...
pur da color che le dovr*ien* dar lode ...
e traspar*ien* come festuca in vetro._

Cantar de mio Cid
_ex*ien* lo veer mugieres e varones ... 
en cuenta de sus averes, de los que av*ien* ganados ...
non le osar*ien* vender al menos dinarada ...
si non, perder*iemos* los averes e las casas ...
_
(As far as I remember, in some regional Romance languages similar forms still exist).

My question: What is the explanation for these verbal forms?

Thanks in advance.


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## wtrmute

That's a good question.  In _el Cantar de Mío Cid_, I might venture that these forms are simply the regular forms in _-ía-_, but possibly with a "weaker" *a* (closer to a schwa) which might be written down as an *e*.  Remember that orthography in general was not commonly standardised until fairly recently, the 18th Century at least.


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## Nino83

> *Le forme in -ìa(no) alternano con forme in -ìe(no), di origine toscano-orientale e senese*: ad es. dicie (Lettera di Consiglio de’ Cerchi, ecc., I, p. 597, r. 13), avie (Guido Cavalcanti, 41, v. 8); potieno (Brunetto Latini, Rettorica, p. 22, r. 15); gli ess. sono numerosissimi nei testi di Bono Giamboni (combattieno (Vegezio, L. 1, cap. 12, p. 19, r. 7), avieno (Libro, cap. 7, par. 1), ecc.).



It is a variant from Eastern Tuscany and Siena. 

http://www.achyra.org/cruscate/viewtopic.php?p=12688#12688


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## francisgranada

Interestingly, the Asturian imperfect seems to be the combination of both _-ia_ and _-ie_, for example:

_partía
partíes
partía
partíemos
partíeis
partíen
_
Consequently, the same paradigm is present also in the conditional (_partiría, -iríes, -iría, -iríemos, -iríeis, -iríen_)


wtrmute said:


> ... I might venture that these forms are simply the regular forms in _-ía-_, but possibly with a "weaker" *a* (closer to a schwa) which might be written down as an *e*.


In such case there should be also other cases for this "weaker" *a* written as *e*, not only the imperfect endings.  (Maybe there are other examples as well, though I've accidently found only _Calvarie _instead of _Calvaria/Calvario_, but this can be explained by the Latin _Calvari*ae* Locus_)


Nino83 said:


> It is a variant from Eastern Tuscany and Siena.


This seems to suggest that the Tuscan and the Asturian/old Spanish _-ie-_ have no common origin, in spite of the notable similarity.


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## merquiades

In manuals on the History of the Spanish Language they usually say that in Old Spanish the imperfect indicative had two alternative variants that were totally equivalent and both frequent. The accent of the form in _e_ was on the final syllable.  _Avié_ and _Avía_, _Viviés_ and _Vivías_.  Over time the _ía_ variant gradually won out.


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## ahvalj

Since the Latin Imperfect of the _i_-verbs (conjugations 4 and 3b) was -_iē-bā_- (_dormiēbam, capiēbam_), it could have been the direct source of those forms, judging from the Old Spanish stress (_dormiēbās>*dormiéas>dormías/dormiés_).
_
_


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## francisgranada

merquiades said:


> ... The accent of the form in _e_ was on the final syllable.  _Avié_ and _Avía_, _Viviés_ and _Vivías_.


Yes, I've noticed the accent in some transcriptions, but I wasn't that sure about it (e.g. the Asturian _partíen _seems to contradict to it_). _With the accent at the final syllable I can also think about a certain "risk" to confound it with the pretérito perfecto: _vivié ~ vivió._ With a bit of phantasy I can imagine an "ancient" accented _-é_ also in the 3rd pers.sg.pret.perf. in _-er_ verbs before _-ió_ has become the standard ending (see e.g. It. _tem*è* ~ _Sp._ tem*ió*_). 





> ... In manuals on the History of the Spanish Language they usually say that in Old Spanish the imperfect indicative had two alternative variants that were totally equivalent and both frequent.


Perhaps, as result of some kind of later "mixture" of different Romance regional languages/dialects ***...

It would be interesting to know if the Italian version in *-ìe *is present only in the Senese/eastern Tuscan dialects or some traces could be found also elsewhere in Italy, and/or, what is the explanation for _av*ie* _instead of _av*ea *_?...

*** Only a personal note:  In general, I have some "difficulties" to accept the presence of parallel forms resulting from two different phonetical evolutions in the _same_ _language_ (strictly speaking) at the _same time_, _without _some further reason/explanation.


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## francisgranada

ahvalj said:


> Since the Latin Imperfect of the _i_-verbs (conjugations 4 and 3b) was -_iē-bā_- (_dormiēbam, capiēbam_), it could have been the direct source of those forms, judging from the Old Spanish stress (_dormiēbās>*dormiéas>dormías/dormiés_).


Yes, but in this case we cannot accept the hypothesis that the forms _dormía, partía, avéa, teméa_, ... (already "stabilized" without the intervocalic _v/b_) were the (only) common vulgar Romance forms for both the Sp. and Italian *im*perfect (discussed in an older thread).


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## ahvalj

francisgranada said:


> Yes, but in this case we cannot accept the hypothesis that the forms _dormía, partía, avéa, teméa_, ... (already "stabilized" without the intervocalic _v/b_) were the (only) common vulgar Romance forms for both the Sp. and Italian *perfect* (discussed in an older thread).


Imperfect?

Well, since pre-Classical Latin (Plautus) had both -_iēbā_- and -_ībā_-, they both could have lost -_b_->-_v_- producing thus -_iea_- (_dormiéas_) and -_ia_- (_dormías_), the former variant naturally developed into _dormiés_. I see no other way to explain the Old Spanish stress: all the end-stressed Romance verbal forms are the results of apocope (_cantaré, cantará_) or monophthongization (_cantó, canté_): I can't recall any instance of the stress shift to the final syllable.


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## francisgranada

ahvalj said:


> Imperfect?


Thanks, corrected.


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## francisgranada

I wanted to say that if we suppose that the (only common vulgar) starting form is *_habeat _instead of _habebat_, then we can hardly derive the Spanish form _avié _and at the same time the Italian _avìe _from the same form _*habeat_. I don't contradict to what you say, I'm rather searching the explanation for the different stress in Italian and Spanish in case of _avíen/avién_ (if true; and perhaps it has to do something also with the different stress in case of e.g.  _amábamos/amavamo _...)


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## ahvalj

Well, I have learnt about the existence of the Romance _ie_-Imperfect from you and about the Old Spanish stress from Merquiades, so I am just trying to suggest the most transparent and trivial (evolutionary biologists would say _parsimonious_) explanation. Of course, analysis of old texts would shed more light on all that. 

The Spanish _había_ and _tenía_ are traditionally explained as the result of analogy from the _i_-verbs (as _duerm*e*s_ is the result of analogy from the _e_-type), so I would suggest not to regard such forms as phonetic outcomes of _habēbat_ and _tenēbat_. 

The Italian forms on -_íe_- may be easily explained as leveled after the predominant Imperfect type, and Old Spanish would thus be more conservative in this sense.


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## francisgranada

ahvalj said:


> ... The Italian forms on -_íe_- may be easily explained as leveled after the predominant Imperfect type, and Old Spanish would thus be more conservative in this sense.


Yes (...).

P.S. Perhaps a stupid question: Are we sure that the stress in Spanish was (always)  _avié _and in Italian _avíe_?


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## merquiades

francisgranada said:


> Yes (...).
> 
> P.S. Perhaps a stupid question: Are we sure that the stress in Spanish was (always)  _avié _and in Italian _avíe_?


In Castilian yes.  ÍA competed with IÉ throughout the middle ages.  IÉ increased in popularity until its height in the XIII century when it was the preferred form with writers.  Afterwards it slowly declined until it practically disappeared by the Golden Age.  However, Saint Theresa uses it frequently in her writings in the XVI century, and since she comes from a rural non literary background it's assumed it may have carried on longer in the spoken language.  Some researchers think the IÉ is the original form, others that the accented ending is influence from the Simple Preterite (the other indicative past tense that always accents the ending) and many others note that the nosotros and vosotros forms originally had an accent on the end ex: viviamos/ viviemos and it could have extended from that.  The ultimate preference for the ÍA (IÉ disappeared without a trace) is chalked up to the fact that there is a very strong tendency of IR verbs to stress the Í in whatever verb tense even at the expense of changing the root (then this extended to ER verbs which also adopted the Í).  AR verbs, which are far more numerous and regular, stress the Á in every case and never the ending. This could also have influenced the change in accent in IR nosotros/ vosotros and then put pressure to regularize the ER/IR imperfect indicative along the lines of AR verbs. They also note that the imperfect indicative in modern Spanish is the most regular verb tense.  After readjustment only 3 verbs do not fit into the regular patterns.
By the way, the conditional format cantar ye also existed.
Summary from Perry, A History of the Spanish Language.


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## Nino83

francisgranada said:


> Are we sure that the stress in Spanish was (always)  _avié _and in Italian _avíe_?



For Italian, yes.

I would recall that the form _ìe(no)_ in Eastern Tuscany and Pisa are general, for example we have _portìeno_ (from _port_*are*).


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