Page:A simplified grammar of the Roumanian language.djvu/17

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PHONETIC REMARKS.
5

word, and when an affix containing the vowel a or ă has to be added:

acest, ‘this;’ acéstă (fem.), acésta.
drept, ‘upright;’ dréptă (fem.), drépta, etc.

With some of the words which have had the e modified into é the sound of e has subsequently disappeared; thus—

fé, plur. fete (girls), is pronounced and written fa.
méssă, plur. messe (tables), pronounced and written massă.
vétră, plur. vetre (hearths), pronounced and written vatră.
vé, plur. vere (cousins), pronounced and written va.

etc.

It is only by the plural that we discover that the a of the singular is a modification of e.

o.

ochanges into ó (oa) when we affix to the word, in which it occurs accented, a syllable containing one of the vowels a, ă, e:

eŭ port, ‘I wear;’ el pórtă, ‘he wears.’
pórte (el), ‘let him wear’ (imperat).
frumos, ‘handsome,’ frumóssă, frumóssa.

etc.

Note.—This modification is not made in imported words, or in neologisms:

onest, ‘honest;’ onestă.
chines, chine.
engles, engle.
eŭ onor, ‘I honour;’ el ono, ‘he honours.’

It is impossible, however, to attempt to alter those cases in