Latin
verbs derived from vĕrtĕre
by prefixation
Introduction
Although English has not borrowed the Latin verb vĕrtĕre, it has indeed
borrowed a number of Latin verbs derived from it by means of prefixes. Many of
these Latin verbs are found in English and Spanish, resulting in a number of
cognates. In Table 157
below, we can see these Latin verbs, with their original literal meanings, as
well as the Spanish and English reflexes of those verbs:
Prefix
|
Latin
|
Original
literal meaning
|
English
|
Spanish
|
Same meaning?
|
ab
|
āvĕrtĕre
|
to turn away
|
avert
|
—
|
N/A
|
ad
|
advĕrtĕre
|
to turn to/towards
|
advert
|
advertir
|
No
|
con
|
convĕrtĕre
|
to turn with/together
|
convert
|
convertir
|
Yes
|
dis
|
disvĕrtĕre
|
to turn in opposite direction
|
divert
|
divertir
|
Partially
|
in
|
invĕrtĕre
|
to turn inwards
|
invert
|
invertir
|
Partially
|
ob
|
obvĕrtĕre
|
to turn to/towards
|
obvert
|
—
|
N/A
|
per
|
pervĕrtĕre
|
to turn over, overturn
|
pervert
|
pervertir
|
Partially
|
re
|
revĕrtĕre
|
to turn back
|
revert
|
revertir
|
Partially
|
sub
|
subvĕrtĕre
|
to turn under
|
subvert
|
subvertir
|
Yes
|
trans
|
transvĕrtĕre
|
to turn across
|
—
|
—
|
N/A
|
English got these verbs primarily through French,
which borrowed them from Latin, and it seems very likely that Spanish did too.
Notice that unlike the un-prefixed patrimonial verter, which is a second conjugation verb, these are all third conjugation
‑ir verbs in Spanish. This is very
likely due to these verbs having come into Spanish through French, where they
are attested much earlier than in Spanish and where they were already ‑ir verbs. If these verbs had come into
Spanish from written Latin, they should have become second conjugation ‑er verbs, following the spelling. For
instance, Old French convertir is
attested in the 10th century, Spanish convertir
in the 13th century, and English convert
in the 14th century. French divertir
is first attested in the 14th century, English divert in the early 15th century, and Spanish divertir in the late 16th century.
These verbs typically have nouns associated with them to refer
to the name of the action of the verb, such as Eng. conversion ~ Sp. conversión
and Eng. inversion ~ Sp. inversión. These nouns are formed from the
passive participle stem of the Latin verb, vers‑,
with the nominal ending ‑iōn‑.[1]
The ‑iōn‑ ending in
Latin always attached itself to the passive participle root, which typically ended
in t, thus being the source of many English
nouns in ‑tion, pronounced
(unstressed) [ʃən], such
as notion [ˈnoʊ̯.ʃən] and affection [ə.ˈfɛk.ʃən].
The Spanish equivalent is ‑ción , with
a t to c spelling change. It is pronounced [ˈθi̯on]
in most of Spain and [ˈsi̯on] elsewhere. Sometimes, however,
the stem of the past participle did not end in t but rather in s (cf. Part
I, §8.4.3.1.3),
as is the case with the verb vĕrtĕre,
whose past participle is versus (stem:
vers‑). The resulting derived nouns for
such verbs did not end in …tiōn-,
but rather in …siōn‑ in Latin
and thus they end in ‑sion in English,
also always pronounced [ʃən],
and in ‑sión in Spanish (always pronounced
[si̯on]).
The past participle of the English and Spanish versions of all
of these Latin verbs have been fully regularized. Thus, the past participle of English
convert is converted, formed by adding the regular English suffix ‑ed, and the past participle of Spanish convertir is convertido, formed by adding the regular Spanish suffix ‑ido, and not converso, which is what a descendant of Lat. conversus would have looked like. Actually, as we shall see in the
next section, the word converso is
indeed a word in Spanish, but it is a noun meaning ‘convert’. It comes from the
Latin noun conversus, zero-derived (converted)
from the identical passive participle of the verb convĕrtĕre.
[1] Actually, the ending is ‑iō in the nominative case and ‑iōnem
in the accusative case, the latter always being the source of the Spanish and
English words, by the ‘removal’ of the ‑em
inflectional ending
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