lã

Forms

lã, the short (unstressed) dative form of the plural pronouns elj and eali.^[1][2]

• Other spellings: lă in Mihăileanu's Romanian-based spelling;^[3] LĂ in Papahagi's dictionary, which files it as the genitive-dative plural of el.^[4][5]
• Candrea and Densusianu give both lă and le as the unstressed Aromanian dative plural.^[6]
• Cunia numbers the pronoun lã¹ and the possessive lã² “their”, and refers both to the full pronoun.^[2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin illīs (“to them”), the dative plural of ille (“that; he”).^[1][5] Ciorănescu traces Romanian le, the Romanian dative plural, to the same Latin form.^[7]

The unstressed dative plural is shared by the other Eastern Romance languages: Candrea and Densusianu give Megleno-Romanian la, and Kovačec records Istro-Romanian la as the dative of the 3rd person pronoun.^[6][8]

In Latin, ille replaced the older pronoun olle (ollus); de Vaan explains its initial i- by analogy with iste (“this”).^[9] For the older stem he considers both Proto-Italic *olno- and *olso- possible, with the Celtic and Slavic evidence favouring *olno-.^[9]

Earliest recorded meaning

The oldest dictionary record is Mihăileanu's of 1901, which glosses lă as the dative plural of the 3rd person pronoun, as in va s' lă pitrécu nă cárte (“I shall send them a letter”).^[3]

Semantic evolution

The Latin dative plural kept its function: Aromanian lã is the unstressed indirect object “(to) them”, for a masculine or mixed group and for a feminine one alike.^[1][5] Mihăileanu quotes lă fiçeși aistă buneață (“you did them this kindness”).^[3] Placed after a noun, the same form serves as an enclitic possessive “their”: dipúsiră n hoáră-lă (“they went down into their village”).^[4][2]

Timeline

• 1901 – lă “to them” in Mihăileanu's dictionary.^[3]
• 1963 – Papahagi files lă as the genitive-dative plural of el.^[4]
• 1974 – the second edition of Papahagi's dictionary derives it from Latin illīs.^[5]

Meanings

Pronoun

1. (to) them; the unstressed indirect object of the 3rd person plural.^[1][3][5]
2. (enclitic, after a noun) their.^[5][2]

Related words

• Romanian le

Usage notes

Other words are spelled or pronounced alike: the preposition la “to, at”, which Pascu derives from Latin illāc (“that way”),^[10] and the verb lau “to wash”, from Latin lavō (“to wash”), whose 2nd person imperative is lã.^[10][2][4]

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Cunia, Tiberius (2008), Dictsiunar a limbãljei armãneascã, Editsii Timpurarã (after T. Papahagi, Ș. Mihăileanu and I. Dalametra; online at dixionline.net), p. 576
3. ^ a b c d e Mihăileanu, Ștefan (1901), Dicționar macedo-român, București, p. 253
4. ^ a b c d Papahagi, Tache (1963), Dicționarul dialectului aromân, general și etimologic, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 617
5. ^ a b c d e f Papahagi, Tache (1974), Dicționarul dialectului aromân, general și etimologic, 2nd augmented ed., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Socialiste România, p. 726
6. ^ a b Candrea, I.-A.; Densusianu, Ov. (1907–1914), Dicționarul etimologic al limbii române: elementele latine (A–Putea), București
7. ^ Ciorănescu, Alexandru (1958–1966), Diccionario etimológico rumano, La Laguna: Universidad de La Laguna (Romanian ed.: Dicționarul etimologic al limbii române, București: Saeculum, 2001)
8. ^ Kovačec, August (1998), Istrorumunjsko-hrvatski rječnik (s gramatikom i tekstovima), Pula
9. ^ a b de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
10. ^ a b Pascu, Giorge (1925), Dictionnaire étymologique macédoroumain, 2 vols. (I: Les éléments latins et romans; II: Les éléments grecs, turcs, slaves, albanais, germaniques, magyars, néologismes, créations immédiates, obscurs), Iași: Cultura Națională, p. 1, 105