Do direct descendents of "sub" (As a preposition) only exist in Ibero-Romance(Spanish,Asturian,and Portuguese)?Most other Romance languages seem to use the derivative "subtus" to express "under".
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Sub in Romance languages
- Thread starter purasbabosadas
- Start date
Romanian has su.
In Sardinian there are at least three different ways to express "under" or "below"
- sutta or a sutta (from "subta") - under
- josso (from "deorsum"; compare also with Romanian "jos") - down, below, downstairs
- in basciu (compare with Portuguese "abaixo") - down, below
I found, indeed, this word mentioned in: Meyer-Lübke - Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch
Me, as Romanian native speaker, I haven't heard or read such word, but I don't exclude the possibility to be regional.
Romanian online dictionary does not mention a su:
dexonline - su
We are currently using the word sub, which has attested forms like subt or supt in 18th and 19th century:
dexonline - sub
The word supărete might have induced to Meyer-Lübke an etymology like:
rom. supărete < lat. sub + parietem (accusative of parietis)
I think the evolution was:
lat. subtus + parietem > *subtpariete > *suptpariete > supărete
because of the difficulty in pronouncing the group of consonants: btp or ptp.
dexonline - supărete
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I feel curious about the final b in Portuguese sob. Final stops aren't allowed by Portuguese phonotactics (or weren't, in EP), but on the other hand it's not a Latinism because that would have been sub, not sob. I guess it was added later to draw closer to Latin, and pronunciation was shaped after writing.
So / su / sob / sub was rather common in Medieval Galician, although today, spelled "so", belongs just to literary registers and proverbs. Anyway, it is very frequent in toponyms (Suaigrexa / Suirexa < sub illa ecclesia, Somonte < sub montem, Somoza < Sub Montia, Sorribas < sub ripas, Socastro/Sucastro < Sub castrum, etc), meaning "under" or "upon".
In my opinion these place names show that the sob spelling in Medieval Galician-Portuguese, retained in Modern Portuguese but not in Galician, was just a spelling.
In my opinion these place names show that the sob spelling in Medieval Galician-Portuguese, retained in Modern Portuguese but not in Galician, was just a spelling.