The Loom Of Language

Modern Descendants of Latin

353

More often than not, French descendants of this class end in a
consonant

(b) Descendants of Latin fenunines with trie nominative singular
ending -A are also feminine and retain the same terminal in
Spanish and Portuguese, as in Italian. In French it usually
makes way for a mute -E Portuguese nouns ending in ~cao
(Latin -tione) are feminine

These two clues tell us how to deal with the enormous class of
Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese nouns which have the singular ter-
minals -O (masc ) or -A (Jem) Among Latin nouns which did not have
the characteristic masculine, neuter or feminine endings -US, -UM, -A
in the nominative singular some had terminals which stamp the gender
class of their descendants throughout the group In the following list
the Latin equivalent is the ablative case form.

LATIN
ITALIAN
SPANISH
FRENCH

MASCULINE
-ALE

canale

-ENTE

acadente

-ALE

canale

-AL

canal

-ENTE
acctdente

-ENT

accident

FEMININE

-IONE
-IGNE
-ION

nations
nazwne
nicion
nation

-ATE hbertate
-A liberta
-AD libertad
-E hberte

-TUDINE
gratitudine
-TUDINE gratitudine
-TUD grantud
-TUBE gratitude

Latin abstract nouns with the ablative singular terminal -ore were
masculine Their descendants suck to their original gender in Spanish
and Italian, but have become effeminate in French

LATIN
ITALIAN
SPANISH
FRENCH
ENGLISH

clamore
il clamore
el clamor
la clameur
clamour

colore
il colore
el color
la couleur
colour

dolore
il dolore
el dolor
la douleur
pain

pudore
il pudore
el pudor
la pudeur
modesty

sapore
il sapore
el sabor
la saveur
taste (savour

vapore
il vapore
el vapor
la vapeur
steam3 vapour

M