Balkan tongues (was: biloxi update)

["Alfred W. Tüting"]

> (Bob) BTW, while I'm on Romanian articles, the textbook analysis of the
masculine singular nominative-accusative article as a postposed -ul is
wrong.  The apparent suffix -ul is actually bimorphemic.  The /-u/ is
historically the masculine singular ending on the noun stem.  The
article is just the /-l/.  (Or, more abstractly, /-lu/).  There was a
sound change that lost the -u regularly.
So the proper segmentation of, say, calului 'of the horse' is calu + lu
+ i 'horse + art. + genitive.  Not, as found in standard textbooks, *cal
+ ul + ui, or, worse, *cal + ului.  Trust me, I wrote a whole
dissertation of this stuff :-) <<

I totally agree with that. And that seems to be why in some fix
expressions there's still the final -u (without article -l), e.g. _dracu_.

  Vã ia dracu

  Fiul Diavolului se duce la Satana:
  -Tatã, vreau sã mã insor!
  -Bine fiule, dar vezi sã nu iei o curvã!
  -Dar tatã, cum stiu cã nu e curvã?
  -Pãi fiule,iesi cu un Ferarri pe o stradã, clanxonezi, si dacã
intoarce capul e curvã, dacã nu ia-o de nevastã....
  Iese el pe stradã cu Ferrari, clanxoneazã, dar toate intorc capul.
  Iese el pe a 2-a stradã cu Ferrari, clanxoneazã, dar toate intorc capul.
  Iese el pe a 3-a stradã cu Ferrari, clanxoneazã, numai una nu intoarce
capul. Se duce la ea si o ia de nevastã.
  MORALA BANCULUI:
  Fetelor faceti-vã curve, cã vã ia dracu' !!

;-)


Alfred