# -iamo endings in Italian



## Doctorr

Hi to all,

1. it seems interesting to me that in Italian, in present indicative 1st plural form we always have a _-iamo_ ending, either in a regular verb (parliamo) or an irregular one (siamo), independently of the conjugation type, 1st (mangiamo), 2nd (corriamo) or 3rd (finiamo).
Do you know anything on this evolution from Latin plural to the Italian counterpart? Why did it happen? What was the origin? A hypothetical "-amus"?
In other neolatin languages it´s different: e.g., estamos/comemos/venimos in Spanish, falamos/vivemos/vimos in Portuguese. 
In French, by the way, neither have I noticed a vast variety, just sommes and all the other verbs - parlons/finissons/devons (both regular and irregular verb types).

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## wandle

Not only Italian verbs, but other words too show an inserted or substitutive vowel: e.g._ buono_,_ fiore_.

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## CapnPrep

Doctorr said:


> Do you know anything on this evolution from Latin plural to the Italian counterpart? Why did it happen? What was the origin? A hypothetical "-amus"?


-_amus_ is hardly hypothetical: It is the most common ending for this person in Latin! However, this is not in itself sufficient to explain why it was extended to all conjugation classes in Italian, particularly given that the form -_*i*amo_ would appear to derive from subjunctive verbs like _hab*e*amus_, _fac*i*amus_, etc. The precise details of this evolution are still unclear. The origin of the ending -_ons_ in French (from _sons < sumus_?) and the reasons for its generalization to all verbs (except, bizarrely, _sumus_) are more uncertain still.


wandle said:


> Not only Italian verbs, but other words too show an inserted or substitutive vowel: e.g._ buono_,_ fiore_.


The sound changes leading to the appearance of those vowels are well understood (Romance diphthongization, vocalization of _l_), and neither can explain the presence of the yod in -_iamo_.

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## fdb

Some Italian dialects still have -amo, -emo, -imo in the three conjugations. As CapnPrep has explained, -iamo comes probably from the generalisation of the subjunctive present 1st pl. of verbs like facio. In the 1st pl. the subjunctive is a high-frequency form ("let us do it").


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## wandle

Granted that the individual processes which led to formations such as _buono_, _fiore_ and _-iamo_ were different, it is still true, is it not? that each of these instances also illustrates a general characteristic of Italian compared with other Romance languages: namely, a higher frequency of vowels and a greater number of syllables in words derived from Latin. 
Such at least is my impression. If that observation is valid, we still have the question why Italian took that direction when other Romance languages did not.


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## fdb

In the development of florem > fiore and bonum > buono I do not see any increase in the number of syllables. Italian is not the only Romance language that has lots of diphthongs. The same thing happens in Old French, e.g calidum > *caldum > /tʃaud/ > /ʃo/.


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## wandle

fdb said:


> In the development of florem > fiore and bonum > buono I do not see any increase in the number of syllables.


I see an increase in the number of vowels.


> Italian is not the only Romance language that has lots of diphthongs. The same thing happens in Old French, e.g calidum > *caldum > /tʃaud/ > /ʃo/.


Diphthongs of that kind seem to me to represent an opposite tendency: more like syncopation than separation or expansion.


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## fdb

flo > fio is exactly the same kind of change as ald > aud : conversion of a lateral consonant to a semivowel.


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## wandle

Between _calidum_ and _chaud_ there seems to me to have been a reduction both in syllables and vowels.


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## CapnPrep

wandle said:


> I see an increase in the number of vowels.


The words are written with an increased number of vowel letters, but the number of syllables remains the same. No Romance variety, past or present, (as far as I know) shows a tendency to a greater number of syllables compared with Latin.


wandle said:


> Diphthongs of that kind seem to me to represent an opposite tendency: more like syncopation than separation or expansion.


Diphthongization of a simple vowel is by definition a form of segmentation. The loss of the intertonic vowel in _cal*i*dum _is a separate development, but it did put the _l_ in the right context (pre-consonantal) to vocalize to _u_. For examples without syllabic reduction, consider _sa*l*tu(m)_ > _sa*u*t_ or _sa*l*va(m)_ > _sa*u*ve_. This is not what happened in _fiore_, but there are similarities.


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## wandle

It is not that Italian shows more vowels or syllables than Latin, but that it shows more than French, Spanish and other languages do, in Latin-derived words. 

_Caldo_ and _chaud_, from _calidum_, are examples of this.


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## CapnPrep

wandle said:


> It is not that Italian shows more vowels or syllables than Latin, but that it shows more than French, Spanish and other languages do, in Latin-derived words.


I see. Italian has indeed preserved more paroxytonic words, although Spanish is not very far behind. (French has of course been extremely careless phonetically, dropping one or two syllables from practically every word.) And as for "inserted" vowels, those are in fact more prevalent in Spanish than in Italian (e.g._ fuerte _vs _forte_, _viento _vs_ vento_).


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## wandle

On the other hand, Spanish dispenses with a final vowel in many cases such as _salvador vs salvatore, señor vs signore, mirar vs mirare,_ etc.


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## Montesacro

fdb said:


> Some Italian dialects still have -amo, -emo, -imo in the three conjugations.



Actually the dialects spoken in Tuscany are the only ones that have -iamo in the three conjugations. It is an exclusively Tuscan thing.


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## Angelo di fuoco

wandle said:


> On the other hand, Spanish dispenses with a final vowel in many cases such as _salvador vs salvatore, señor vs signore, mirar vs mirare,_ etc.



There was a time when Spanish dispensed with even more final vowels (e, particularly) than now and that were reintroduced later. In literature (no that I know it very well) there's the occasional reinsertion of the finale -e in words like "comendador(e)" as late as in the 17th century.
By the way, while Spanish got rid of the final -e in the infinitive, it preserve the final -e in other forms. E. g. the form _mirare_ exists, but it's the 1st and 3rd person singular of future subjunctive mood, which has persisted in Spanish in juridical language and some proverbs.


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## fdb

Angelo di fuoco said:


> There was a time when Spanish dispensed with even more final vowels (e, particularly) than now and that were reintroduced later.



And thus also Italian (salvator, signor, mirar etc.)


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## Angelo di fuoco

I wouldn't say that: in Italian (Tuscan) long and short forms (i. e.. with or without final vowels) existed side by side for a very long time depending on context or the speakers' will. It's only quite recently that the preference for long forms has taken over in most cases.


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## Nino83

wandle said:


> Granted that the individual processes which led to formations such as _buono_, _fiore_ and _-iamo_ were different, it is still true, is it not? that each of these instances also illustrates a general characteristic of Italian compared with other Romance languages



the first two changes are well known, and are spread among Romance languages. 

flore (VL): fiore (IT), fleur (FR), flor (SP, PT) 
plano (VL): piano (IT), plan (FR), llano (PS), chão (PT); in SP e PT there is also "plano", but it is a learned word 
clave (VL): chiave [kjàve] (IT), clef/clé (FR), llave (SP), chave (PT) 

French keep the "l", Italian takes an "j" while Spanish and Potuguese change the consonant (but mantain the "f" in the first example). All this doesn't apply on learned words and there are many exceptions. 

bono (VL): buono (IT), bon (FR), bueno (SP), bom (PT); French doesn't have a diphthong because nasalization neutralizes this process 
novo (VL): nuovo (IT), neuf (ò -> uò -> uè -> eu) (FR), nuevo (SP), novo (PT) 
foco (VL) : fuoco (IT), feu (ò -> uò -> uè -> eu) (FR), fuego (PS), fogo (PT). 




Montesacro said:


> Actually the dialects spoken in Tuscany are the only ones that have -iamo in the three conjugations. It is an exclusively Tuscan thing.



I confirm. 
Romanesco: annàmo, bevèmo, venìmo 
Siciliano: annàmu, bivèmu, vinèmu


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## Montesacro

Nino83 said:


> I confirm.
> Romanesco: annàmo, bev*é*mo, venìmo
> Siciliano: annàmu, bivèmu, vinèmu



Hope you don't mind the correction... 

Let's add a Northern dialect:
Venetian: andémo, bevémo, venìmo.


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## Nino83

Montesacro said:


> Hope you don't mind the correction...



Figurati  

Salentino (leccese): mandàmu, pendèmu, enìmu


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## fdb

I should definitely have written "Many Italian dialects" not "Some..." in no. 4. Thank you for the clarification.


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## bo-marco

Emilian: and*ém*, bv*ém*, vgn*ém*.


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## Doctorr

Montesacro said:


> Actually the dialects spoken in Tuscany are the only ones that have -iamo in the three conjugations. It is an exclusively Tuscan thing.



That´s really interesting! I didn´t know it.



Nino83 said:


> Romanesco: annàmo, bevèmo, venìmo
> Siciliano: annàmu, bivèmu, vinèmu


Thanx for the examples.


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