Reconstruction talk:Latin/alisna

Reconstruction

Hi @Sokkjo. I am (finally) having a look at these reconstructions. In most cases I agree with the reversion. In this specific case I'm not sure, as the basis for reconstructing an altform *lexina isn't clear to me. The loss of initial /a/ in a feminine noun is common, as in Italian badessa or pecchia, albeit not regular.

As for the */ks/, I suppose it was meant to explain the diphthongs in parts of Western Romance? To which we might add the Old French variants aloisne, auloine (FEW 15/1, p. 16). While */ks/ would explain the diphthongs, the latter are also normal outcomes of stressed ē/ĭ in an open syllable, some comparison words being crēta and sĭtis. That would suggest a reconstruction like *alĭsĭna, which is corroborated by the Italian lesina and explainable as resulting from the absence of (intramorphemic) /sn/ from Latin, apart from a handful of foreign borrowings. If I'm not mistaken, all of the Romance forms are derivable from *alĭsĭna, assuming some variation in the timing of syncope in northern France. But I would check this more thoroughly before setting it as the ‘canonical’ reconstruction. Nicodene (talk) 21:50, 1 April 2024 (UTC)

@Nicodene: Thanks for taking the time to go over this. Moving the entry to Latin *alisina seems fine. Some of the WG descendants show an vowel insertion between the s and n as well. -- Sokkjō 04:34, 5 April 2024 (UTC)