From: Eric Christopherson (raccoon@elknet.net)
Date: Fri Jan 19 2001 - 09:31:03 EST
On Wed, Jan 17, 2001 at 05:52:27PM +0100, BP Jonsson wrote:
> At 17:28 2001-01-14 -0600, Eric Christopherson wrote:
> >^ Is <pora> a conjunction of pol + a, or something separate? And is it
> >pretty much like <para> in Spanish? (And where did <para> come from?)
>
> According to Meyer-Lübke Sp. _para_ is a compounded form of
> PER. Unfortunately he does not say *what* PER was compounded with to
> arrive at _para_, but probably it was AD.
>
> Catalan has _pera_, BTW.
Ah, thanks, BP. Actually, after asking the question, I happened across an
answer to it in my historical grammar of Spanish, but it contradicts yours
slightly. My source says that para < pora < Latin pro+ad, but it doesn't say
why the o became a (nor why por < pro, but I know metathesis of -Vr to -rV
was somewhat common, as in quattuor > cuatro, so maybe the opposite
metathesis too). What other sources do the Romance "for" words come from? I
assume French <pour> is the same as <por>, but there's also <par> (IIRC).
And Italian uses <per>, no? Also, do the others display a distinction like
that of Spanish para vs. por?
-- Eric Christopherson / *Aiworegs Ghristobhorosyo
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