III. MORPHOLOGY.
88. The most important morphological developments are common to all, or nearly all, the Romance languages. They may therefore be ascribed, in their early stages, to Vulgar Latin, although direct evidence of their beginnings is scanty.
1. DECLENSION.
NOUNS.
89. (1) During the late Vulgar Latin and early Romance period neuter nouns gradually became masculine; this change was doubtless due in part to phonetic developments which obliterated distinctive endings: dōnum ＞ dọn, m.; nōmen ＞ nọm, m. Mare, however, became almost always feminine in Gaul: la mar. Some neuter plurals in -a, used mainly in a collective sense, were preserved and eventually became feminine singulars: fŏlium fŏlia ＞ fǫlha, f. sg.; lĭgnum lĭgna ＞ lẹnha, f. sg.; so luǫgua, pọma, prada, beside lǫc, pọm, prat (and, by analogy, grasa, beside gras ＜ gradus); similarly labia ＞ lavias, f. pl.
(2) Masculine and feminine nouns usually kept their original gender. Abstract nouns in -or, however, regularly became feminine in Gaul, other abstract nouns being mostly feminine in Latin: honōrem ＞ onọr, f.; sapōrem ＞ sabọr, f. With the exception of manus, which generally retained its gender, feminine nouns of the second and fourth declensions, unless they passed into the first declension (pĭrus ＞ pẹra), became masculine, to conform to the usual -us type: fraxĭnus ＞ fraisnes, m.; pīnus ＞ pins, m. Attracted by such words as these, arbor became masculine. There were some other less important shifts.
1. Juventus, passing into the second declension, became masculine (ioven); but we find also ioventut, f. Laus became masculine in Provençal; fin, on the other hand, is always feminine. Mĕrŭla ＞ merle, m. Correitz, linh, both m., occur beside correia ＜ corrĭgia, linha ＜ līnea. Other similar changes might be noted. Pr. dia (also di), like Latin dīes, is usually masculine.
90. Some nouns passed from the fourth to the second declension in the classic Latin period (dŏmus, fīcus); the rest doubtless followed in Vulgar Latin (frūctus,[82] gradus, manus). Fifth declension nouns in -ies went over, for the most part, to the first declension:[83] dīes ＞ dia, facies ＞ fassa, glacies ＞ glassa, rabies ＞ rabia; but we find also di, fatz, glatz (ratge is probably French), following the third declension type. Fifth declension nouns which did not shift to the first came to be declined after the model of the third (fides, res, spes). The five declensions were therefore reduced to three, presumably in Vulgar Latin times. Among these there were some exchanges: polvera, vergena; cf. § [89], (1), (2), 1.
91. The use of cases became more and more restricted in Vulgar Latin, prepositional constructions taking the place of pure case distinction. At the beginning of the Romance period, nouns probably had, in unstudied speech, only two cases in constant use: a nominative and an accusative or accusative-ablative. These two cases were generally retained in Provençal, for the second and third declensions, until the literary period: we may call them nominative and objective.