Re: michelle bachelet -- how does she pronounce her name?


"Brian M. Scott" <b.scott@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote...

> John Atkinson <johnacko@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> [...]
>
>> "Miguel Carrasquer" <mcv@xxxxxx> wrote...
>
>>> "Fig" is <higo> < Lat. ficum.
>
>> As a gardener, I know the tree is Ficus. I suppose ficum
>> was the fruit of the ficus, no?
>
> The fruit was also ficus. (The tree was distinguished as
> <arbor ficaria>, whence Sp. <higuera>.) Late Latin sound
> changes reduced Latin to a two-case system; here the
> nominative would have been something like *ficos or *figos,
> and the oblique would have been *fico or *figo. (I'm too
> lazy to try to sort out the timing.) As with French, the
> modern noun comes from the oblique case, which is most
> easily (and conventionally) derived from the Latin
> accusative.

'Kay. Obvious. I knew all that, it just sort of slipped my mind when I saw
Miguel's "ficum". Thanks.

John.


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