txakur/dzhagaru/cachorro....

[Diogo Almeida]

>From: "Leo A. Connolly" <connolly at memphis.edu>
>Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2001 22:35:39 +0000

[ moderator snip ]

>The larger question is why we have _leche_ (as well as It. _latte_, Fr.
>_lait_ when there was no **_lactem_ so long as the word was neuter.  But if
>_lactem_ developed, then gender reassignment would be a must, and formally
>there would have been no reason to choose masculine over feminine.  Why
>shouldn't a product of the female breast become feminine?  If anything, it's
>the masculine forms that need explaining.

I'm no specialist and I don't know what was the vulgar latin or the early
romance word for milk on the Peninsula at that time, but my latin dictionary
gives "lacte, is" for milk (and "lac" as an archaic form). I think that
"lactem" then, would have been the accusative form (I have to rely on my
memory, though, since I don't have any Latin grammar with me :) ).
Portuguese, as a general rule, got the accusative form of latin words. So
"lactem" being the accusative, it seems likely that the word in Portuguese
developed from that form (I don't have an etymological dictionary with me,
though). And since neuter was absorbed by the masculine gender in general
(at least in Portuguese, I don't know about Spanish), i don't see any
problems with "leite" being masculine. On the other hand, "leche" as
feminine is strange to me, especially because Portuguese and Spanish
normally agree when it comes to the gender of the words.

>"formally there would have been no reason to choose masculine over feminine.
>Why shouldn't a product of the female breast become feminine?  If anything,
>it's the masculine forms that need explaining."

If the gender systems of Portuguese and Spanish were mainly semantically
driven, maybe. But they aren't. There is a strong formal element in gender
assingment in these languages. And as I said before, I think that neuter
words become masculine in Portuguese most of the time (and I guess this is
also true for Spanish).

Best wishes,
Diogo