Reconstruction:Latin/sapium
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Latin
[edit]Etymology
[edit]Alteration of Classical sapidus (“delicious, wise”), with semantic specialization. Possibly restructured according to the verb sapere (“taste, know”) + an ending -us taken from the antonym nescius (“foolish, ignorant”).
Pronunciation
[edit]Adjective
[edit]*sapium (Proto-Gallo-Romance)
Reconstruction notes
[edit]Attested in French from ca. 1050 (Vie de saint Alexis), Occitan from between 1054 and 1076 (Cançó de Santa Fe),[1] and Catalan from ca. 1275 (Llibre del gentil e dels tres savis).[2]
In theory, Iberian outcomes such as Spanish sabio could also be attached to this reconstruction. However, it is only in Gallo-Romance that one finds two sets of inherited reflexes of sapidus showing both divergent phonological evolutions and semantics.
Descendants
[edit]- Catalan: savi (/b/ despite the spelling)
- Old Franco-Provençal: savio, *sajo
- Franco-Provençal: sâjo
- Old French: savie, sage (see there for further descendants)
- Old Occitan: savi (see there for further descendants)
References
[edit]- ^ Walther von Wartburg (1928–2002) “sapĭdus”, in Französisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch (in German), volumes 11: S–Si, page 204
- ^ “savi” in Diccionari català-valencià-balear, Antoni Maria Alcover and Francesc de Borja Moll, 1962.