tãu

Forms

tãu m (feminine ta or tauã, masculine plural tãi, feminine plural tali or tale)^[1]

• Usually preceded by the article a: a tãu, feminine a ta or a tauã, plural a tãi, a tali.^[2][1]
• Other spellings: ατᾶου (atau), feminine ατά, plural ατάϊ, ατάλε, in the Greek script of Nikolaidis.^[3]
• After kinship terms it is reduced to the enclitic -tu (feminine -ta): Pascu quotes tată-tu "your father", Nikolaidis χίλιτου "your son" and σόρτα "your sister".^[4][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin tuus (“your”).^[4][1][3] Ciorănescu explains the Romanian and Aromanian vowel from a dissimilated *toum, as suum became *soum, or from *teum, remade after meum.^[5] Pascu derives the plural forms with -l- by analogy with the feminine plural.^[4] De Vaan traces tuus to Proto-Italic *towo- (“your”) and Proto-Indo-European *tu-o- (“your”), a derivative of the pronoun tū (“you”).^[6]

The word is shared with Romanian tău and Megleno-Romanian tǫu.^[5] In the west the Latin word gave Italian tuo, French ton, Catalan teu and Spanish tu.^[5][7]

Semantic evolution

The sense has stayed that of the Latin word: what belongs to the person spoken to.^[2] Used without a noun, a tãu means "yours".^[2][8]

Timeline

• 1813 – the feminine ta in Boiagi's grammar, as cited by Pascu.^[4]
• 1909 – atau in Nikolaidis's dictionary.^[3]
• 1925 – Pascu derives it from Latin tuus.^[4]

Meanings

Pronoun

1. Your, yours (one possessor addressed).^[2][1][8]

Related words

• Romanian tău

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Cunia, Tiberius (2008), Dictsiunar a limbãljei armãneascã, Editsii Timpurarã (after T. Papahagi, Ș. Mihăileanu and I. Dalametra; online at dixionline.net), p. 1004
3. ^ a b c d Νικολαΐδης, Κωνσταντίνος (1909), Ετυμολογικόν λεξικόν της κουτσοβλαχικής γλώσσης, Αθήνα, p. 99
4. ^ a b c d e 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, 169
5. ^ a b c Ciorănescu, Alexandru (1958–1966), Diccionario etimológico rumano, La Laguna: Universidad de La Laguna (Romanian ed.: Dicționarul etimologic al limbii române, București: Saeculum, 2001)
6. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
7. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
8. ^ a b Bara, Mariana (2024), Dictsiunarlu ti cathi dzuuã, online at dixionline.net