The Importance of Comparative Romance Linguistics and Keeping Language Departments Intact
Sarah Hart Te State University of New York at Bufalo
1. Introduction
n recent years, it has become common to see language departments divided at larger American universities. To mention several: the University of Massachusets at Amherst combines ISpanish and Portuguese in one department ofce with its own website, while French and Italian are found in a diferent ofce with separate websites. Te department for Spanish and Portuguese is also separated from the department for French and Italian at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and Ohio State University. At the University of Virginia and Penn State, Spanish, Italian and Portuguese are housed in one department while French exists in a department on its own1. 72 | Te Importance of Comparative Romance Linguistics Hart | 73
Te importance of comparative Romance linguistics makes this an alarming trend. It is through comparative Romance linguistics that the history of Romance can be discovered; indeed much of what is known today about its history is through reconstruction of the modern Ro- mance languages. According to Calvert Watkins, “Te reconstruction of vocabulary can ofer a fuller, more interesting view of prehistoric people than archeology precisely because it includes non-material cul- ture” (qtd. in Campbell 380). Tus comparative linguistics allows us to know more about past civilizations and learn from them. Te follow- ing comparative study of the Spanish verbs saber and conocer shows a discovery only possible through knowledge and research of several Ro- mance languages. Tese verbs were chosen based on a discovery made while reading Latin: verbs which appeared to be their ancestors did not match the meanings of saber and conocer.
2. History of Romance
Many people are aware that the Romance languages descended from Latin. However, there are in reality two distinct Latin languages. Te frst can be found in such writings as Catullus poems, Cicero speeches, and Augustine prose; it is called Classical Latin and was spoken by very few members of society, as it was primarily a literary language. Te sec- ond is Vulgar Latin, so named not because it was a defective, crude or obscene language, but simply because it was spoken by the vulgus: the common people. As the Romance languages evolved through speech, not text, their true ancestor is Vulgar Latin, which we will call Popu- lar Latin for the remainder of this paper to avoid negative connotations (Boyd Bowman 1). While examples of Classical Latin are abundant, examples of Pop- ular Latin are extremely rare. Whereas Classical Latin has been pre- served and put into print over several centuries in amazing multitudes, Popular Latin was rarely documented and solely appears today in state- 72 | Te Importance of Comparative Romance Linguistics Hart | 73
ments by grammarians, non-literary notes, glossaries, and texts writen by those with litle education. Some writers also used Popular Latin in plays to reach a wider audience and to portray plebian characters more realistically. Additionally, two very important sources of information on Popular Latin are the Appendix Probi and Peregrinatio ad loca sancta. Te former is a list showing forms that were considered preferable, side by side with forms that were considered incorrect (Popular forms); the later is a travel description writen by an uneducated woman, believed by researchers to be a Spanish nun (Penny 6-7). Although the two Latins are closely related in the Indo-European language family, they are distinct enough to be considered separate languages. It is not simply that Popular Latin is a later form of Classical Latin; both existed in the same time period separate of each other, and as time passed the language in each area of Romania evolved diferently as a result of substrate and superstrate infuence (Penny 5). Evidence that Classical Latin is not the ancestor of the Romance languages appears with the set of Romance words for horse: the Classi- cal Latin word for horse is equus, however the Romance languages show caballo in Spanish, cheval in French, cavallo in Italian, cavalo in Portu- guese and cal in Romanian. Tis is clearly not a mater of extreme sound change, and it is not a mater of recent borrowing. Te variation in the fve words acts as evidence against borrowing; it shows the distinct his- torical sound changes that occurred in each language. For example, if French had recently borrowed cheval from another language, we would not see a change in the initial sound. French is a language that allows words to begin with ca-, such as cacahouète (peanut), canyon (canyon) and cacher (to hide). Tus, a borrowing would also allow ca- and not show evidence of the historical palatalization that French words under- went. In addition, the limited evidence of Popular Latin shows the word caballus being used for horse. Tis word also existed in Classical Latin, 74 | Te Importance of Comparative Romance Linguistics Hart | 75
however it meant nag; workhorse. Equus and caballus form the proto- typical example of evidence that Romance languages evolved from a language other than Classical Latin. We are fortunate this was also demonstrated in the limited resources for Popular Latin, as the small amount of data does not ofen provide sufcient evidence (Penny 4-5). Unlike the case of caballus, Classical Latin forms are frequently identical in form and meaning to Popular Latin even though the two are separate languages. Tus many people fall into the trap of believing that the Romance languages descended from the Latin of Catullus and Cicero, the Latin that is still taught in some schools today. Tis article will not only show the inaccuracy of that sentiment but also demon- strate the importance of such historical knowledge and unity among researchers of today’s Romance languages. 3. Comparative Reconstruction
Comparative reconstruction is a tool that uses a group of related lan- guages to etymologize certain words in an ancestor language. Tis is especially common with language families for which an ancestor lan- guage is unknown or minimally documented, as is the case of Popu- lar Latin. To complete a comparative reconstruction, we will use the cognate forms to Spanish saber and conocer in French, Italian and Por- tuguese but not Romanian, in which Slavic infuence ofen causes the forms to be unhelpful to reconstructions.
Spanish Portuguese French Italian saber saber savoir sapere conocer conhecer connaître conoscere
At frst it appears as if the etymon, or ancestor form, of the frst word could be saber since it occurs twice while the others only occur once; however, in reconstruction, frequency is not a factor, history is, and each variation must be considered fully. Te frst diference we see 74 | Te Importance of Comparative Romance Linguistics Hart | 75
in the four verbs is between the three labial sounds /p/, /b/ and /v/. Tis is not surprising given the popularity of lenition in Romance% that is the weakening of sounds ofen between two vowels. Te path of lenition starts with voiceless stops, then voiced stops, then fricatives, then sometimes deletion. In the case of labial sounds, the order is p > b > v > Ø (Boyd Bowman 107). Based on this rule, we will posit *sap-, which is marked with an asterisk to show it is a reconstructed form. Tis form is further evidenced by the appearance of –p- in various stems of Spanish saber such as sup- in the preterite and sep- in the sub- junctive. Te next distinction lies with the French diphthong against the other three single vowels. Considering that diphthongization is common in many languages, we can safely assume –e- was the original vowel (54). Finally, we have one form with fnal –e and three without. Apocope (deletion of a fnal vowel) is also an extremely common sound change, especially efecting –e, thus we will posit the –e existed in the Popular Latin etymon, producing the reconstructed form *sapere (56). Concerning the next verb, for which the cognates are conocer (Sp.), conhecer (Pt.), connaître (Fr.) and conoscere (It.), the frst distinction shows an alveolar nasal in Spanish, French and Italian and a palatal nasal in Portuguese (similar to ñ in Spanish). Te most likely recon- struction for this sound is /gn/ which palatalized to form /!/ in Por- tuguese. Te other three languages showing deletion of /g/ is not sur- prising, as consonant clusters ofen simplify over time (Boyd Bowman 97). Further evidence is seen in the old spelling in Italian: cognoscere. For the next distinction, we chose to leave out French as it appears to have undergone a radical change while Spanish and Portuguese show /s/ and Italian shows /"/ (the frst sound in shell). Based on orthogra- phy, we assume that Italian conoscere, although pronounced with /"/, was at some point pronounced with /sk/ and again refer to the trend of simplifcation of consonant clusters and posit that /sk/ existed in the 76 | Te Importance of Comparative Romance Linguistics Hart | 77
ancestor form. Tis assumption is further supported by the /sk/ cluster that appears in the Spanish form conozco. Finally, apocope will again cause us to posit a fnal –e on the ancestor form. Tis leaves us with the reconstructed form *cognoscere pronounced /kognoskere/. Trough knowledge of several Romance languages and common historical sound changes along with consultations with various speak- ers of the four languages studied in this section, we have thus posited *sapere and *cognoscere as the ancestor forms. Not surprisingly, these forms match words in Classical Latin. However, form alone does not prove that Classical Latin sapĕre was the same as Popular Latin sapere. In the following section, we will complete a similar reconstruction us- ing the meaning of the words rather than their forms.
4. Semantic Reconstruction
Historically, the meaning of a word can change as easily as its pronun- ciation can. Rules do not necessarily apply to semantic change as apoc- ope and lenition apply to sound, although general trends of broadening or narrowing of meaning may appear. For example, Latin campus re- ferred to any open feld or area while in English campus primarily refers to the grounds of a school, typically a university (Lewis “campus”). Tis demonstrates semantic narrowing, as a previously broad meaning has been shrunk to a more specifc one. Although languages do not undergo regular semantic changes that can be traced backwards, if similarities exist among the languages we can reconstruct those as meanings of the etymons as we did in the previous section with sounds. We will now consider the meanings of the cognate verbs in Spanish, French, Italian and Portuguese. 76 | Te Importance of Comparative Romance Linguistics Hart | 77
4.1 Spanish
According to the Vox New College Spanish and English Dictionary, sa- ber is used to mean “to know [have cognizance of, be apprised or in- formed of], to be wise to...to know [possess in the memory]... to know, be able, know how, can...to taste of, taste like; to smack of” (“saber”). In other words, saber means “to know a fact or piece of information”, “to taste like”, or, when followed by an infnitive, “to know how to do something”. Te four most common modern Spanish uses of saber can be seen in the following examples: Miguel sabe la dirección de María. Miguel know-3 sg the-fem address of María Miguel knows María’s address.
Tat is to say, Miguel knows, or possesses, a piece of information, and that information is an address. In the second example, saber is used to show knowledge of how to do something by preceding an infnitive. Carmen sabe nadar. Carmen know-3 sg to swim Carmen knows how to swim.
In certain contexts, and especially in the preterite tense, saber can be used to mean “to fnd out”, which can be seen in the following example: Ayer supe la mala noticia. Yesterday fnd out-1sg-pst the-fem bad-fem news Yesterday I found out the bad news.
A very diferent use of saber is the meaning “to taste” when referring to the favor of something. For example: Este pollo sabe bien. this-masc chicken taste-3 sg well Tis chicken tastes good.
While semantically distant from the other meanings of saber, this mean- ing is accompanied by several semantically similar words such as sabor, 78 | Te Importance of Comparative Romance Linguistics Hart | 79
a noun meaning “taste”, and saborear “to savor” (Corominas “saber”). Te Vox New College Spanish defnes conocer as “1. to know (by the senses or by the mind; to discern, distinguish; to recognize; to have im- mediate experience of; to be appraised of; to be familiar with). 2. to be or get acquainted with, to meet” (“conocer”). Keeping this defnition in mind, a Modern Spanish use of conocer can be seen in the following examples: Conozco a Lily, ella es bonita. Know-1 sg OBJ Lily she-NOM is-3 sg prety-fem I know Carmen, she is prety.
Using the verb conocer in this sentence shows that I am acquainted with this person named Carmen: I am familiar with who she is, and I know her well enough to fnd her prety.
Similar to saber, conocer can have a diferent meaning, especially in the preterite tense where it means “to meet”: Ayer conocí a la esposa de Juan. Yesterday meet-1sg-pst ACC. the-fem wife of Juan Yesterday I met Juan’s wife.
An example with both verbs further illustrates the diference: Él conoce Don Quijote y sabe que ! He-NOM know-3 sg Don Quijote and know-3 sg that ( ! fue escrito por Cervantes. ( was-3 sg-pst writen by Cervantes He is familiar with Don Quijote and he knows that it was writen by Cervantes.
Tis example demonstrates frst the verb conocer showing a familiar- ization with something (the novel Don Quijote), followed by the verb saber showing the possession of a piece of information (the name of the author of the book, Cervantes). 78 | Te Importance of Comparative Romance Linguistics Hart | 79
4.2 French
French savoir, according to Harrap’s New Shorter French and English Dictionary, has various defnitions, including “to know… to be aware of (sth.)…to know how, to be able (to do sth.)” (“savoir”). Given these def- initions, most of the same examples from Spanish saber can also be used to demonstrate French savoir while still giving the exact same meaning. Te frst one in Spanish was Miguel sabe la dirección de María, which is shown below in French.
Miguel sait l’ adresse de María. Miguel know-3 SING. the-masc address of María Miguel knows María’s address.
Te second example of Spanish saber that can also be used in French with savoir is Carmen sabe nadar, which is shown to have the same meaning in French below: Carmen sait nager. Carmen know-3 SING. to swim Carmen knows how to swim
However, the third example of saber seen above–Este pollo sabe bien– cannot be used with French savoir. Te Modern French verb goûter means “to taste of,” which is the refex of Latin gustāre (Picoche “goût”). Modern French does however have words that are derived from savoir and have meanings similar to taste. Saveur is a noun meaning taste, sa- vourer is a verb meaning to savor and savoureux is an adjective meaning favorful (Picoche “savoir”). Te cognate of Spanish conocer in French is connaître. Harrap’s dictionary defnes this verb as “to be acquainted with (sth)… to be ac- quainted with (s.o.)… to be versed in, to have a thorough knowledge of (sth)” (“connaître”). Tis verb has nearly the same meaning as Spanish conocer, although connaître cannot be used to mean to meet, which is expressed by faire la connaissance in French. Tat diference aside, the 80 | Te Importance of Comparative Romance Linguistics Hart | 81
example sentence used above in Spanish, Conozco a Lily, ella es bonita, can be used exactly the same way in French. Je connais Lily, elle est belle. I know-1 sg Lily she-NOM is-3 sg prety-fem I know Lily, she is prety.
We have now seen that saber and savoir, conocer and connaître can al- most always be used in the same ways to mean the same things, which is not surprising since the two languages are so closely related genetically.
4.3 Italian
In Italian, sapere is very similar in meaning to Spanish saber and is de- fned in Cassell’s Italian Dictionary as “to know, to have knowledge of, to be aware of; to understand, to learn of, to know how to, to be able to; to taste of, to smell of” (“sapere”). Based on this defnition, the three ex- amples used above with Spanish saber, could also be used in Italian with sapere (although according to Italian speakers gustare is ofen preferred as the verb “to taste”). Te Italian cognate conoscere is defned in the same dictionary as “to know, to be acquainted (with), to make the acquaintance (of), to recognize; to take cognizance of” (“conoscere”). Again, it is nearly the same meaning that was given to conocer in a Spanish dictionary. Indeed the Spanish examples for conocer provided earlier would take conoscere if translated into Italian and be perfectly grammatical. 4.4 Portuguese
In Portuguese, the cognate is saber, defned in A Portuguese-English Dic- tionary as “to know, have knowledge of; to be aware of; to understand; to know how to; to be sure or certain of; to be capable of; to smack of, to taste like” (“saber”). Te second cognate in Portuguese is conhecer, which is defned in the same dictionary as “to know, be aware of, cogni- zant of; to be familiar with, well-versed in; to have experience in, to rec- 80 | Te Importance of Comparative Romance Linguistics Hart | 81
ognize, distinguish” (“conhecer”). Again, the cognate words match up almost perfectly with the meanings in the other Romance languages. 4.5 Reconstructed meaning
In the previous section we discovered that for the cognates of saber, each of the four languages in this study share the meanings “to know a fact” and “to know how to do something.” In addition, three share the mean- ing “to taste,” although in Italian it may not be the preferred word. We will thus posit these three meanings to the reconstructed verb *sapere. For *cognoscere, we will posit the meaning “to be familiar with a place or a thing”–the only meaning shared among the four languages. We can feel confdent reconstructing meaning because the words are more likely to be inherited than borrowed. Tis is true for two rea- sons. First, the languages are all related, and secondly, no neighboring language contains cognates to saber and conocer. Te likelihood that two words spread nearly identically to four related languages and to no other nearby languages such as German or Serbo-Croatian is min- iscule. Tis parallels methods used in areal linguistics, which aim to determine the cause for shared linguistic traits. However this method never utilizes an area in which all languages are closely related due to the high probability the traits were simply inherited and thus require no research (Campbell 5).
4.6 Classical Latin meaning
Knowing that Classical and Popular Latin are similar languages, we will now look at and compare the Classical Latin verbs sapěre and cognoscěre to the reconstructed Popular Latin verbs. Classical Latin sapěre had transitive meanings: “to taste of, smack of, savor of, have a favor of” but also intransitive meanings: “to have taste, have discern- ment, be sensible, be discreet, be wise, discern” (Lewis “sapiō”). 82 | Te Importance of Comparative Romance Linguistics Hart | 83
Following this defnition, an example of this verb appears in Martial 9:10: Nubere vis Prisco, non miror, ! to marry wish-2 sg Priscus-NOM no surprised-1 sg-PASS% !Paula; sapisti. %Paula-NOM be wise- 2 sg You, Paula, wish to marry Priscus, I am not surprised, you are wise.
Ducere te non vult Priscus:! to marry you-ACC not wish-3 sg Priscus-NOM% !et ille sapit. %and he-NOM be wise-3 sg Priscus does not want to marry you, and he is wise.
Tis example shows sapĕre being used to mean “to be wise, to be sen- sible”. It cannot, in these cases, have transitive meanings like our recon- structed verb in Popular Latin because neither of the clauses contain- ing sapĕre includes an object. In contrast, cognoscĕre meant “to become acquainted with, acquire knowledge of, ascertain, learn, perceive, understand,” and was also used to mean “to know” in the perfect tenses (Lewis “cognoscō”). To show an example, in an epigram from Martial 1:55, the very frst line reads as follows: Vota tui breviter si vis! Promise-ACC-pl your-GEN briefy if wish-2 sg% !cognoscere Marci. %to learn Marcus-GEN If you wish to learn briefy of your Marcus’ promises.
Te beginning of this poem contains the infnitive of cognoscĕre used to mean “to learn, to fnd out, to discover” some sort of information, dem- onstrating its eventive quality whereas we reconstructed it in Popular Latin to have a stative quality “to be familiar with”. 82 | Te Importance of Comparative Romance Linguistics Hart | 83
Tese meanings are similar, but not identical, to our reconstructed forms. At this point, to fll the gap between our posited Popular Latin meanings and the atested Classical Latin meanings, the later of which does not contain the meaning “to know,” a third verb must be added. Te Latin verb scīre was a common verb in Latin that simply meant “to know, understand, perceive, have knowledge of, be skilled in” (Lewis “sciō”). Scīre can be seen in many examples, including the last two lines of Martial 11:8: scire cupis nomen?! To know desire-2 sg name-ACC(
!Si propter basia, dicam. (if because kisses-ACC.pl tell-1 sg-future You desire to know the name? If it’s because of kisses, I will tell you.
iurasti. nimium scire, Sabine, cupis. Swear-2 sg too much to know Sabinus-NOM desire-2 sg You swear, Sabinus, you desire too much to know
In these two instances of scīre, both are being used to express knowing a fact or a piece of information, which in this poem is the name. Tis is the most common use of scīre in Classical Latin, which has a much higher frequency of use than both sapĕre and cognoscĕre. In Claude Pavur’s list of the most frequent words in Classical Latin based on a 5.3 million word corpus, scīre is listed at 822 in terms of most frequent while cognoscĕre is at 3325, and sapĕre at 4388 (Pavur). If this patern were also true in Popular Latin, it seems unlikely that such a common word would disappear from four Romance languages. Terefore, we will posit that scīre did not exist in Popular Latin.
4.7. Analysis of Semantic Reconstruction
Tus, it is clear that the Classical Latin verbs scīre, sapĕre and cognoscĕre were not the ancestors of the Romance cognates of saber and conocer. 84 | Te Importance of Comparative Romance Linguistics Hart | 85
Rohlfs claims that in Popular Latin, sapere was used for the meanings of Classical Latin sapĕre in addition to scīre (52). Tat is to say that in Popular Latin, sapere meant “to know a fact,” “to know how to do some- thing” and also “to taste like.” Tis is exactly what we earlier posited as a reconstructed meaning. Tis is precisely the type of information that comparative linguists strive for. Tis shows us that those speak- ers had some semantic connection between taste and knowledge. Al- though this connection was also shown in the Classical Latin defnition of sapĕre: “to taste of, smack of, savor of, have a favor of; to have taste, have discernment, be sensible, be discreet, be wise, discern,” reaching this conclusion without that knowledge supports the notion that simi- lar discoveries can be made with reconstruction (Lewis “sapiō”). 5. Complications in Romanian
As stated before, a verbal refex of scīre is not found in the four Romance languages in this paper, yet it is found in Romanian. Tere are several theories concerning the existence of ştiu in Romanian meaning to know, one of them being that it is a learned word. All languages contain de- rived words and learned words. Te former is a word that survives from language to language, experiences sound changes and perhaps also se- mantic changes along the way. A learned word is taken from an ancestor language much later and therefore is not afected by the regular sound changes, as sound changes only occur during a certain period of time. A Latinist trend emerged in Romania in the nineteenth century replacing old Romanian words with learned words from Latin or bor- rowed words from French (Boia 84). Words of Slavic origin were espe- cially targeted, and although Latinism eventually died out, its eforts lef a lasting mark on the language (85). Tis trend is the cause of many Romanian learned words, possibly including (although not verifed) ştiu. An example of learned and derived words is seen in the Spanish words, clave and llave. Both have the Latin word clāvis (key to open 84 | Te Importance of Comparative Romance Linguistics Hart | 85
something) as an etymon, however it is clear that llave (pronounced / #a.βe/ in Castillian Spanish) has undergone the regular sound change of cl > # in word initial position (Resnick 36). Terefore llave (key to open something) is the derived word, while clave (key to a problem; password) is a learned word, taken much later from Latin and having skipped over the lifetime of the cl > # / sound change. A second theory regarding Romanian ştiu is that the verb sapĕre never made it to Dacia, which was the area that corresponds greatly to Romania today (Sala 45). Unfortunately, there were long periods of litle contact between the Western and Eastern parts of the Roman Empire in which the spoken language evolved in diferent ways (44). Popular Latin was spoken across the entire Roman Empire and obvi- ously was not one single homogeneous language; however the area that is now Romania was more isolated than the other regions, causing the Popular Latin spoken there to become more unlike the other varieties. 6. Conclusion
In conclusion, three major claims have been made in this paper. Te frst is that Popular Latin, not Classical Latin, is the ancestor to the Romance languages. Secondly, although phonetically identical, se- mantically sapĕre and cognoscĕre were not the same as in Popular Latin. Tirdly, as sources and corpora of Popular Latin are nearly unavailable, the frst two claims of this article could not have been made without knowledge of and sources for multiple Romance languages. Tis is why not only Romance Language departments but all closely related lan- guage departments must remain intact. As many ancient languages are poorly documented, historical reconstruction is the only tool to regain lost knowledge. 86 | Te Importance of Comparative Romance Linguistics Hart | 87
notes
1. htp://www4.uwm.edu/letsci/spanish/, htp://www4.uwm.edu/letsci/fcl/french/ htp://virginia.edu/french/, htp://www.virginia.edu/span-ital-port/spanish/ htp://sip.la.psu.edu/, htp://www.french.psu.edu/ htp://spanport.lss.wisc.edu/, htp://frit.lss.wisc.edu/ htp://sppo.osu.edu/, htp://frit.osu.edu/ htp://www.umass.edu/spanport/, htp://www.umass.edu/hfa/french/, htp://www.umass.edu/italian/
works cited
Boia, Lucian. Romania: Borderland of Europe. London: Reaktion Books Ltd, 2001 Boyd Bowman, Peter. From Latin to Romance in Sound Charts. Washington DC: Georgetown University Press, 1980 Campbell, Lyle. “Areal Linguistics: A Closer Scrutiny.” Linguistic Areas: Convergence in Historical and Typological Perspective. Eds. Yaron Matras, April McMahon and Nigel Vincent. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006. 1-31. Campbell, Lyle. Historical Linguistics: An Introduction. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1998. Corominas, Joan. “conocer” Diccionario Crítico Etimológico Castellano e Hispánico. 1980. Print ———. “saber” Diccionario Crítico Etimológico Castellano e Hispánico. 1980. Print Haverling, Gerd. On –sco Verbs, Prefxes and Semantic Functions. Göteborg: Acta Universitatis Gothoburgensis, 2000 Lewis, Charlton Tomas. “campus” An Elementary Latin Dictionary. 1894. Print ———. “cognoscō” An Elementary Latin Dictionary. 1894. Print ———. “sapiō” An Elementary Latin Dictionary. 1894. Print ———. “sciō” An Elementary Latin Dictionary. 1894. Print MacHale, Carlos F and Biblograd, S.A. “conocer” Vox New College Spanish and English Dictionary. 1984. Print. ———. “saber” Vox New College Spanish and English Dictionary. 1984. Print. Mansion, J. E. “connaître” Harrap’s New Shorter French and English Dictionary. 1967. Print. ———. “savoir” Harrap’s New Shorter French and English Dictionary. 1967. Print. Penny, Ralph. A History of the Spanish Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002. Picoche, Jacqueline. “goût” Dictionnaire Etymologique du Français. 1983. Print. ———. “savoir” Dictionnaire Etymologique du Français. 1983. Print. Pavur, Claude. Latin Vocabulary: High-Frequency Latin Word-Forms: 2nd Edition. Saint Louis University 1997-2009. Web 17 March 2010 Rebora, Piero, comp. “conoscere” Cassell’s Italian Dictionary. 1964. Print. 86 | Te Importance of Comparative Romance Linguistics Hart | 87
———. “sapere” Cassell’s Italian Dictionary. 1964. Print. Resnick, Melvyn C. Introducción a la historia de la Lengua Española. Washington DC: Georgetown University Press, 1981. Rohlfs, Gerhard. From Vulgar Latin to Old French: An Introduction to the Study of the Old French Language. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1970. Sala, Marius. Du latin au roumain. Paris: L’Harmatan, 1999. Taylor, James L. “conhecer” A Portuguese-English Dictionary. 1963. Print ———. “saber” A Portuguese-English Dictionary. 1963. Print