# Italian and Romanian plural



## francisgranada

Hi everybody!

I'd like to start a discussion about the origin of the Italian and Romanian plural (ending in -i and -e). 

(This argument was treated partially also in other threads, but I was not able to find a thread dedicated especially to this question [sorry, if I am mistaken ...])

Precision:
Generally, the Romance nouns and adjectives are supposed to derive from the the Latin accusative (or "casus obliquus") which is valid also for the Italian in singular. Instead, in plural we have _pochi, poche, case, amori_ etc.... instead of the "expected" _pocos, pocas, casas, amores.
_
So the question is if the Italian (Italo-Romance) and Romanian  (Balcano-Romance ?) plurals derive directly from the Latin nominative (even though e.g. the Latin for _amori _is _amores_) or it's rather the result of a later evolution?


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## fdb

Yes, the Italian and Romanian plurals continue directly the Latin nominative plural. amori is an example of paradigmatic levelling.


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## CapnPrep

There was already some discussion of Italian plural endings in this thread, in particular about 3rd declension nouns:
Accusative declension from Latin -> Italian
And there is also this Wikipedia article:
Romance plurals
And this paper, which you may have on-line access to:
Yves D’hulst (2005) "Romance plurals". _Lingua_ 116: 1303–1329.

Finally, you might like to check out this project on Romance plurals at Oxford:
The Romance noun


francisgranada said:


> Instead, in plural we have _pochi, poche, case, amori_ etc.... instead of the "expected" _pocos, pocas, casas, amores._


Final _s_ would not be expected to survive in Italian. The question is what it would have turned into and the possible effects on the final vowel.


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## francisgranada

CapnPrep said:


> ... Final _s_ would not be expected to survive in Italian ...


Of course (I haven't expressed myself precisely enough) 

Thanks for the links. I've read some opinions also before and as far I can understand, there is still no "general consensus" on this question. That's the reason why I'd like to hear (read) the opinion of others, too. The Wikipedia article says: _The "nominative" theory appears more straightforward at first; however, the "accusative" theory is more common currently._


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## Ben Jamin

Is there a possibility that there was an influence of invading nations (Goths and Lombards) on development of Italian from Latin?


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## francisgranada

Ben Jamin said:


> Is there a possibility that there was an influence of invading nations (Goths and Lombards) on development of Italian from Latin?


In case of the plural endings, I don't believe.


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## XiaoRoel

Desde el punto de vista de un latinista (mi profesión) no hay duda de que esta teoría del "acusativo" para explicar los plurales del italiano (don de hay hablas con plural en -s), ni es mayoritaria, sino todo lo contrario, es l*a teoría del nominativo la que está mayoritariamente aceptada*.
Sabida es la cercanía a la lengua madre, en cosas gramaticales especialmente, del rumano y del italiano.
Estos plurales vocálicos trazan además una línea de separación, una isoglosa que separa el romance occidental, mayoritariamente de sustrato céltico, del italiano, del dálmata y del rumano, que además sufren el adstrato y superestrato germánico, y después el dálmata y el rumano la presión adstrática y superestrática de las lenguas eslavas, que no sufren las lenguas hispanicas centrooccidentales, por las que los elementos suevo o visigodo casi ni dejaron rastro.


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## Forero

I think that when speakers of Vulgar Latin quit distinguishing between nominative and accusative nouns, they still needed a way to distinguish plural from singular. Most chose to use "-s" for plural, and some chose to use a vowel change (and there were some other things too), but none chose nominative or accusative _per se_ as their model because they saw no clear difference. Some regularly eliminated final _s_ whatever its source, but all regularized to some degree or another.

Rumanian is heavily influenced by Slavic and other non-Romance language habits. How do Slavic languages form plurals?

The Italian peninsula is not just the part of the Empire nearest the city of Rome but the home of highly varied dialects, some with roots in non-Latinate languages. Is some sort of "missing link" still spoken somewhere that, for example, sometimes allows an _-s_ ending and sometimes an _-i_ (for plural nouns, second person verbs, etc.)?


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## fdb

francisgranada said:


> Of course (I haven't expressed myself precisely enough)
> 
> Thanks for the links. I've read some opinions also before and as far I can understand, there is still no "general consensus" on this question. That's the reason why I'd like to hear (read) the opinion of others, too. The Wikipedia article says: _The "nominative" theory appears more straightforward at first; however, the "accusative" theory is more common currently._



I agree with you. In linguistics, as in other sciences, the truth is not decided by a majority vote (and certainly not by what gets into the unsigned and unrefereed entries in Wikipedia), but by the strength of argument. For me, the argument that explains ALL Italian plural forms as somehow truncated accusatives seems extraordinarily weak.


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## CapnPrep

fdb said:


> For me, the argument that explains ALL Italian plural forms as somehow truncated accusatives seems extraordinarily weak.


Which particular version of the argument do you have in mind here? I don't know if anyone has proposed explaining ALL Italian plurals as etymological accusatives, but Martin Maiden comes pretty close, and I do not consider his work "extraordinarily weak". The nominative hypothesis has its share of problems, too.


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## merquiades

XiaoRoel said:
			
		

> Desde el punto de vista de un latinista (mi profesión) no hay duda de que esta teoría del "acusativo" para explicar los plurales del italiano (don de hay hablas con plural en -s), ni es mayoritaria, sino todo lo contrario, es l*a teoría del nominativo la que está mayoritariamente aceptada*.
> Sabida es la cercanía a la lengua madre, en cosas gramaticales especialmente, del rumano y del italiano.



Sí, eso es lo que siempre me han enseñado y la verdad es que es muy lógico, pero entonces como latinista ¿cómo explicarías tú la pérdida sistemática de la s final en italiano incluso donde (más) normal hubiera sido conservarla... por ejemplo, además del nominativo, también en las desinencias verbales de segunda persona singular... amas> ami?  ¿Será analogía?  Ya sé que a lo mejor es pura casualidad pero me llama la atención que antes donde había /s/ (y aún lo tenemos en las lenguas occidentales hispánicas) ahora hay /i/ (italiano y rumano).


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## killerbee256

How do/did plurals functions in other Italian and eastern Romance Languages? Is it the same?


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## merquiades

killerbee256 said:


> How do/did plurals functions in other Italian and eastern Romance Languages? Is it the same?



This should answer your question.  There's a line going through Northern Italy.  North and West of this line plurals are taken from the accusative and end in s (this includes French, Spanish, Portuguese etc.), South and East of this line they end in vowel sounds and surely derive from the nominative (Italian and most dialects and Romanian).


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## berndf

Forero said:


> Most chose to use "-s" for plural


I don't know why you say "most". Today Western Romance languages have more speakers than Eastern Romance languages. But this was not necessarily so some 1800 years ago or whenever the the divide developed.


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## francisgranada

Forero said:


> ... Rumanian is heavily influenced by Slavic and other non-Romance language habits. How do Slavic languages form plurals?


Typical Slavic plural endings today in nominative :
Masculine: -y, -i, -e/é/ia, -ove/ové/ovia
Feminine: -y, -i, -e
Neuter: -a/á
In other cases we have a plenty of different endings (-om, -am, -ach, -iach, -och, -ami, -imi, -mi, -ov ….)

I myself can hardly imagine the influence of the relatively complex Slavic plural system on Rumanian, and absolutely not on Italo-Romance.


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## berndf

merquiades said:


> ..., South and East of this line they end in vowel sounds and *surely derive from the nominative *(Italian and most dialects and Romanian).


If you read the discussion above, you will discover that this is not at all "sure".


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## merquiades

berndf said:


> If you read the discussion above, you will discover that this is not at all "sure".



I did read it but I'm not really convinced.  The nominative theory makes sense. That's why I said surely with a very slight doubt and not definitively, obviously, completely.

Xiao the latinist has said it is obvious and accepted by everyone, so I've asked him to explain it.




For me surely means probably not certainly. See #8


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## francisgranada

merquiades said:


> ... The nominative theory makes sense ...


The accusative theory makes sense, too ...

(see e.g. Romance plurals , a link given by CapnPrep)


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## merquiades

Personally I believe the nominative theory, but my only little doubt is that final /s/ has completely disappeared in Italian (even where it shouldn't have):  for example, the "tu" verb endings have "i" in Italian, not "s" which cannot be easily explained.  It seems wherever there is /s/ in Western Romance, Italian has /i/, which would lead to believe there was a phonetic change across the board.

Edit:  @Francisgranada.  


> The "accusative" theory essentially suggests:
> Italian plurals are in fact derived from the nominative plural.
> However, Proto-Romance had nominative plural -ĀS, not *-AE.
> The following sound changes took place:
> /as/ > /ai/, /es/ > /ei/.
> In unstressed syllables, /ai/ > /e/, /ei/ > /i/.


I guess both theories could go hand and hand then.  Both together could explain everything.  Italian might derive from the Proto-romance nominative and not the Classical Latin nominative (which is not the same) and then out of analogy all unstressed /as/ become /e/, all unstressed /es/ become /i/. Complicated.....


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## francisgranada

merquiades said:


> ... my only little doubt is that final /s/ has completely disappeared in Italian (even where it shouldn't have):  for example, the "tu" verb endings have "i" in Italian, not "s" which cannot be easily explained.  It seems wherever there is /s/ in Western Romance, Italian has /i/ ...



This is not the only "problem" that cannot be easily explained. According to the nominative theory we should expect _amice, lunge_ etc... instead of _amiche, lunghe _etc ... Another question is the appearence of -i also in cases when in Latin there is -s: _amori, spiriti, voci_ ...  (of course, this can be a later generalization of this -i, but ...)

P.S. Sorry, I haven't noticed your last edit before ...


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## merquiades

francisgranada said:


> This is not the only "problem" that cannot be easily explained. According to the nominative theory we should expect _amice, lunge_ etc... instead of _amiche, lunghe _etc ... Another question is the appearence of -i also in cases when in Latin there is -s: _amori, spiriti, voci_ ...  (of course, this can be a later generalization of this -i, but ...)
> 
> P.S. Sorry, I haven't noticed your last edit before ...


Yes those words with /k/ that have palatized masculine plurals but not feminine plurals is an enigma:  amico amici amica amiche.  It is also strange that /k/ nouns are palatized but not /g/ nouns:  albergo alberghi.  Maybe this is another issue.  All romance languages have palatized in different ways before different vowel sounds


Incidently, Andalusian Spanish shows vowels opening after final s is eliminated.  Las amigas > Lah amigah > Lae amigae.  Los hombres > lohombreh > lɔ hombrei
So I can believe that final /s/ could eventually become /i/ or /e/.

Edit:  At any rate there must be nominative.  It could have been that there was hesitation between nominative and accusative at a certain time with a general switch to nominative then in the mind of people since -s was disappearing in favor of -i they generalized the rule to all nouns then to final -s in general.  *this is just my pure mental speculation


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## francisgranada

merquiades said:


> ... Italian might derive from the Proto-romance nominative and not the Classical Latin nominative (which is not the same) and then out of analogy all unstressed /as/ become /e/, all stressed /es/ become /i/. Complicated.....


Not so complicated ... But the Proto-romance nominative mostly coincides with the Latin accusative. This should suggest that rather the accusative theory is "valid" (or at least nearer to the "reality"). 

But yes, the evolution of the Proto-Romance plural endings could be more complicaded and not necessarily a straightforward accusative-to-nominitave development. However, the main question is, if the "Western Romance" and the "Eastern Romance" plural systems are of the same common origin or not? 

(The conservation of the -a plurals as _uova, braccia, dita_ ... etc. in some Italian nouns is another question, but it does not contradict neither to the accusative nor to the nominative  theory)


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## merquiades

francisgranada said:
			
		

> Not so complicated ... But the Proto-romance nominative mostly coincides with the Latin accusative. This should suggest that rather the accusative therory is "valid" (or at least nearer to the "reality").



Isn't this based entirely on Old French which has the advantage of keeping the case system long enough for it to show up in writing?  If that also occurred in the Italian pelninsula would it have to be the same?  We know that French eventually moved toward accusative anyway.


> But yes, the evolution of the Proto-Romance plural endings could be more complicaded and not necessarily a straightforward accusative-to-nominitave development. However, the main question is, if the "Western Romance" and the "Eastern Romance" plural system is of the same common origin or not?



It depends on how early this system developed.  It's known that Romans tended to ignore the Iberian peninsula in later years of the empire.  The lack of contact caused those languages to retain some archaic characteristics.  Yet, it is obvious (no doubt here) for example that Spanish derives completely from the Latin accusative.  The question is did western vulgar latin develop this characteristic on its own? 



> (The conservation of the -a plurals as uova, braccia, dita ... etc. in some Italian nouns is another question, but it does not contradict neither to the accusative nor to the nominative theory)



Weren't these nouns neuter in Latin which would make -a the natural nominative plural?


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## CapnPrep

merquiades said:


> The "accusative" theory essentially suggests:
> Italian plurals are in fact derived from the nominative plural.
> However, Proto-Romance had nominative plural -ĀS, not *-AE.
Click to expand...

This particular part of the Wikipedia article could use some editing… It is true that some scholars believe that Romance inherited a vulgar nominative _-as_ ending, but it is very strange to call that "the accusative theory"… 

The accusative theory derives Italian (masculine and feminine) plurals from VL accusative forms, not only in the _a_-declension, but also for _o_-declension nouns and adjectives.


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## francisgranada

merquiades said:


> ... Incidently, Andalusian Spanish shows vowels opening after final s is eliminated.  Las amigas > Lah amigah > Lae amigae...


It's a perfect example ! After 1500 years some scholars will say that the Andalusian plural comes from the Latin nominative (illae amicae)   (I am just joking ...)



CapnPrep said:


> ... The accusative theory derives Italian (masculine and feminine) plurals from VL accusative forms, not only in the _a_-declension, but also for _o_-declension nouns and adjectives.


The evolution like -os > -oi > -i is very improbable (according to your opinion)?


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## CapnPrep

merquiades said:


> francisgranada said:
> 
> 
> 
> But the Proto-romance nominative mostly coincides with the Latin accusative.
> 
> 
> 
> Isn't this based entirely on Old French which has the advantage of keeping the case system long enough for it to show up in writing?
Click to expand...

Actually, no, if anything, Old French and Old Occitan/Provençal show that Proto-Romance had a nominative derived from the VL nominative and an accusative derived from the VL accusative. I suppose that francisgranada was referring to the general movement, throughout Romance, towards a form that looks more like the Latin accusative than the nominative. But (as discussed for example in the other thread) this is an impression based primarily on the stem of the noun in the singular, so I don't think it can be used to argue anything about the ending of the noun in the plural.


francisgranada said:


> The evolution like -os > -oi > -i is very improbable (according to your opinion)?


It's not unreasonable. The problem is that, as far as I know, it would be pretty much limited to this single grammatical ending. _Noi_ and _voi_ show the first part of the change (if they derive from _nos_ and _vos_), and according to D'hulst in the article I cited above, _voi_ > _vi_ shows the second part (but personally I think _vi_ < _ibi_ is a better explanation).

Apart from these, very few Latin words ending in _-os_ seem to have survived in Italian, so unfortunately we won't able to find strong evidence either for or against _os_ > _i_ as a regular sound change.


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## francisgranada

Thank you, CapnPrep, for the intersting and exhaustive answer. 

For those who are interested in, here is the _Sequence of Saint Eulalia_, an Old French (Walloon) text that contains both nominative and accusative plurals.


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## LiseR

francisgranada said:


> I myself can hardly imagine the influence of the relatively complex Slavic plural system on Rumanian, and absolutely not on Italo-Romance.



First of all, I have to warn you that my Romanian is far not that good, but I'll try to bring a few examples.

Romanian plural : scaun (neutral) = chair / scaune                
dulap(masc) = glass /  dulapuri
    brad(masc) = fir / brazi
copil(masc) = child / copii

and so on


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## francisgranada

I understand you, there are similar plural endings (i,e) in Romanian like in the Slavic languages. However, I think that this is not the consequence of Slavic influence, but rather a common "Eastern Romance" heredity.


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## CapnPrep

Plural formation in Romanian is much more complicated than in Italian, but as far as I know, the various suffixes are all believed to derive from Latin. Looking at Romanian nominal declension in general, a Slavic origin has been proposed for some of the vocative endings, especially feminine singular _-o_, but this is not universally accepted (see e.g. Tucker 1944).


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## robbie_SWE

LiseR said:


> First of all, I have to warn you that my Romanian is far not that good, but I'll try to bring a few examples.
> 
> Romanian plural : scaun (neutral ) = chair / scaune
> dulap(*neutral **+ masc*) = glass *(?? it means "cabinet, wardrobe, locker")* /  dulapuri *+ dulapi*
> brad(masc) = fir / brazi *(disputable origin; some linguists believe the word to be remade from the plural form, thus "brad" < "brazi" )*
> copil(masc *+ neutral*) = child / copii *+   copili   + copile (again, a very problematic word, with several meanings)*
> 
> and so on



  I don't want to sound obnoxious, but your knowledge of the Romanian language does not support your statement or your hypothesis. Just because languages share a trait at first glance doesn't mean they have a common source. 

As Francisgranada stated earlier, complex Slavic plural systems have hardly influenced Romanian and I haven't yet met a linguist who states otherwise. The articles mentioned by CapnPrep illustrate the situation pretty well. 


Best Regards, 

Robbie


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## LiseR

You are right, comrade.

Thanks


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## Nino83

Hello everyone.

All Italian languages had or have vocalic plurals, also Gallo-Italian languages. For example, in Old Piedmontese (until today in Valsesian, _grand/grend_ for _grande/grandi_), Lombard (until recent times, _quest/quist, mes/mis_ for _questo/questi, mese/mesi_), Venetian (_toso/tusi_), Bolognese (_gat/ghet_) there are traces of metafonetic plural for masculine (of the second declension and for masculine/feminine of the third declension) plurals ending in _-i_ (this feature is well mantained in Bolognese and Romagnolo).

About Germanic influences, well, it's difficult to say that Tuscan, Roman, Neapolitan, Sicilian were influenced by those languages.

So, all Italian languages had or have vocalic plurals.

About _amico/amici_ [ko/ʧi], these are exception to the rule. The rule is: for masculine paroxitones, the plural is chi/ghi [ki, gi] while for proparoxitones the plural is ci/gi [ʧi, ʤi]. Some example: bùco/bùchi,  luògo/luòghi but mèdico/mèdici. So the change in the plural [ko/ʧi] is not general in Italian, so _amica/amiche, buca/buche_ i.e the general [ka/ke] for feminine nouns could be explained in a different way.

By the way, there is another explanation.
Singular nouns derive from Latin accusative: rosa, muro, ragione (rationem, nominative ratio). This, because it was the most frequent case.
Plural nouns: first declension _ae/as_ (nominative/accusative plural), second declension _i/os_, thirs declension _es/es_.
Some say that first declension had a nominative plural _as_, like in Old French _la fame/les fames_, so we can rewrite in this manner:
I _as/as _II _i/os_ III _es/es_

As we can see, for I and III there is no difference between nominative and accusative/oblique, while for II we have two endings.

For I we have:



> La spiegazione più ovvia sarebbe che questa desinenza in -e derivi dall'uscita -ae del nominativo plurale, con *monottongamento di AE in E* : ma questa ricostruzione *contrasta* col fatto che in *documenti latini d'età medievale*, ricchi di tratti volgareggianti, sono presenti forme di *accusativo plurale* di nomi di prima declinazione del tipo *capres, operes, tabules* (*in luogo di capras, operas, tabulas*, regolari accusativi plurali di capra, opera, tabula). Queste forme di accusativo in -es sono dei volgarismi, e documentano la fase intermedia di una trasformazione in cui *la -s finale della desinenza -AS dell'accusativo plurale ha « palatalizzato» la A latina trasformandola in una e* (cap. ID, § 4.1): CAPRAS > CAPRES



For III we have:



> PARTE (M) > PARTES > parti
> Come si spiega il passaggio -ES > i. *La "s" finale ha «palatalizzato» la E latina* (che avrebbe dovuto dare una /e/) *e l'ha trasformata in /i/*_. _È un caso analogo a quello che ha prodotto la -e del plurale dei nomi in -a: la "s" ha attirato nella sua orbita articolatoria la -E trasformandola nella vocale palatale per eccellenza (cap. III, § 4. 1).





> Occorre segnalare che nelle opere di molti scrittori fiorentini e toscani del Quattrocento e del Cinquecento s' incontrano spesso nomi femminili singolari in -e (tipo la parte) che al plurale non escono in -i, ma in -e (tipo le parte anziché le parti) . Evidentemente, i parlanti estesero ai nomi femminili in -e la desinenza che si adoperava per il plurale dei nomi femminili in -a, in forza di un meccanismo analogico così rappresentabile: la casa : le case = la parte : le parte



source: G. Patota, Lineamenti di grammatica storica dell'Italiano, Il Mulino

In Italian, plurals were formed from the nominative, for II and from the nominative (equal to the accusative) for I and III, where the last vowel was palatalized by the "s", then the "s" was lost.

I: casa(m) > casa; casas > cases > case
II: muru(m) > muro; muri = muri
III: ratione(m) > ragione; rationes > rationis > ragioni

This theory could explain the plural forms amica/amiche, buca/buche and medieval forms capres, operes, tables.

Anyway, Italian nouns derive from nominative plurals, i.e I as, II i, III es.

This theory says that in stressed syllables, s > i, like in _nos > noi, vos > voi, vas > vai_ or was absorbed by the following consonant, like in _raddoppiamento fonosintattico_, tres casas > tre case /trèk'ka:se/, while in unstressed syllables, "s" palatalized the final vowel, as > es > e, es > is > i.
The second person singular _-i_ in verb conjugation is explained as it follows: 
amas > ames > ame (which are attested in Old Italian) > ami 
temes > temis > temi 
sentis > senti 
The third person singular: 
amat > ama 
temet > teme 
sentit > senti > sente (analogy with the second) 

The other theory says that they derive from I ae, II i, III i (analogy) and that plurals like amica/amiche are a particular case.


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## Ben Jamin

francisgranada said:


> Typical Slavic plural endings today in nominative :
> Masculine: -y, -i, -e/é/ia, -ove/ové/ovia
> Feminine: -y, -i, -e
> Neuter: -a/á
> In other cases we have a plenty of different endings (-om, -am, -ach, -iach, -och, -ami, -imi, -mi, -ov ….)
> 
> I myself can hardly imagine the influence of the relatively complex Slavic plural system on Rumanian, and absolutely not on Italo-Romance.


The variety of plural endings in *different *Slavic languages *today  *does not mean there was the same variety in *the Slavic language *at *the time* it influenced the Vallachian dialects.


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## danielstan

The Romanian plurals can be reasonably explained as derived from Latin plurals (with many similarities with southern Italian dialects), so the Slavic influence cannot be taken into account.

I explain briefly the process (I don't give an academical explanation):

Since Vulgar Latin the final _-s_ and final _-m_ was lost in Balkan Peninsula. In fact there are no Romanian words inherited from Latin with their final _-s_ or _-m_.

This situation eliminated the Latin plurals with _-s _ending and let Romanian "choose" the _-i_ ending for masculine plural and the _-e_ (< lat. _ae_) for feminine plural.

The Latin ending _-ora_ was retained in Romanian as an ending for neuter plural case (along with the feminine _-e_ ending for neuter plural). E.g. _tren/tren*uri*_ vs. _fapt/fapt*e*_

By Romanian internal evolution (_/a/ _in unstressed position became _/ǎ/_ [ə], _/o/_ in unstressed position became _/u/_) this neuter termination has been transformed in _-urǎ_, resulting in confusions with the singular feminine ending -_ǎ_.
Examples:
_gurǎ_ ("mouth", feminine singular)  vs. _cerurǎ_ ("skies", neuter plural)
To avoid such confusions the neuter plural ending in -_urǎ_ has evolved in -_ure_ (as it is attested in Old Romanian texts of 16th century).
In these religious texts the neuter plural is (with very few exceptions) ending in _-ure_. Examples: _cerĭure_ ("skies"), _lucrure_ ("things").
Since 17th century Romanian texts contains mixed neuters plurals with -_ure_ and -_uri_ endigs, while after 18th century the -_uri_ ending is generalized.

Under the influence of the Romanian masculine plural ending in _-i_ some other Latin words (which originally ended in _-s_) have gained a _-i_ ending which never existed in Latin:
lat. _nos_ > rom. _noi_ (see also it. _noi_)
lat. _vos_ > rom. _voi_ (cf. it. _voi_)
lat. _duos_ > rom. _doi_
lat. _tres_ > rom. _trei_
----------------------------
The influence of Slavic on Romanian plural ending in _-i_:

Most of the Slavic verbs in infinitive end in _-ĭ_ (short _i_). E.g. _pisatj_ ("to write") [pi-'satĭ]
Romanian plurals use the same short -i (despite the Romanian orthography, which has no special character for distinguishing the short _-ĭ-_ from normal -_i_-).
The effect is the reduction of number of syllables:
rom. _oameni_ ['wa-menĭ] compare with it. _uomini_ ['wo-mi-ni]
rom. _lupi_ [lupĭ]  cf. it. _lupi_ ['lu-pi]
This is applicable also on Romanian neuter plural ending in -_uri_:
rom. _lucruri_ ['lu-krurĭ]


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