jodece

Neapolitan

Alternative forms

iodece (alt. spelling)

Etymology

comments

The expected outcome of the stressed vowel would have been /u/. The shift to /o/ resulted from a sort of reverse-metaphony, whereby the plural judece was taken as implying a singular with /o/, on the pattern of nouns of metaphonic alternations such as ammore (“love”) ⇔ ammure (“loves”). This had the effect of introducing a singular-plural distinction: judece sg or pl → jodece sg, judece pl.

Pronunciation

(Naples) IPA^(key): [ˈjoːrət͡ʃə]

Noun

jodece m (plural judece)

judge

Related terms

jodecare

References

Ledgeway, Adam (2009) Grammatica diacronica del napoletano, Tübingen: Niemeyer, page 66
Rocco, Emmanuele (1882) “jodece”, in Vocabolario del dialetto napolitano