Schlatter—The Development of the Vowel . 
1087 
(b) In the old language,—mostly by literary influence: 
debaccare (from Latin debac- 
chari), 
decervellare (di- mod. and dis- 
popular), 
declarare (mod. dichiarare), 
deguastare (di- in Jacopone and 
Pucci), 
delettare (Cavalcanti, Jacopone, 
Bibbiena, Guittone, Folgore 
da S. Gimignano, Vasari; 
but di- mod. and in Jaco¬ 
pone, Dante, G. Villani, Boc¬ 
caccio, 
G. Giudice, Andrea Lancia, Guit¬ 
tone), 
debmare (Sacchetti, di- in the 
Dittamondo), 
demembrare (di- mod. and G. 
Giudice, Cavalcanti, G. Vil¬ 
lani ; mod. more commonly 
smembrare), 
departire (Guittone; mod. di- 
but not com.; di- in Guittone, 
G. Giudice, Bibbiena, Dante), 
dependente (mod. di- and in Cel¬ 
lini), 
de’podestare (dipot- in Pucci), 
depopolare (di- M. Villani, Bib¬ 
biena; mod. spop-), 
deradicare (di- Boccaccio, Bibbi¬ 
ena, Dittamondo), 
derupare (mod. di- and Caval¬ 
canti, G. Giudice, M. Villani, 
Guicciardini), 
descende're Giving in the moun¬ 
tains, mod. di-, usually scen- 
dere; di- Ariosto, Guicciar¬ 
dini, and the Montagna pia- 
toiese), 
deservire (in the Boezio; di- in 
G. Villani, Bocc., Berni, 
Sacchetti), 
desiderare (also mod. and living 
in the Montagna pistoiese, 
di- Bocc., Dante, Varchi, Pe- 
trarca, Cavalcanti, living in 
the mountains), 
desperanza (mod. di- and in G. 
Giudice, the Dittamondo, Bib¬ 
biena, G. Villani, Cellini, Ca¬ 
valcanti, Machiavelli, Guic¬ 
ciardini, Varchi, et al.), 
desponsare (disposare mod. and 
Dante, M. Villani, Bibbiena, 
Cavalcanti, et al.), 
destillare (mod. di-), 
deverginare, 
devorare (mod. di- and Jacopone, 
Pucci, et al.) 1 . 
14. Examples of the development of DE-vowel: da (DE¬ 
AD), dello (D(E)-ILLITM) 1 , dinanzi, donde, dove 2 . 
§13. Note 1. Under the exceptions given in §13, as well as those 
given in §6 and elsewhere, the investigator’s effort has been to set 
the material before' the reader as it appears. For that reason, out of 
a large number of exceptions, all of which could not and needed not 
be mentioned, he chose typical examples. The provenance of some of 
the exceptions, in the old language was, unfortunately, not always ac¬ 
cessible. Furthermore, everyone knows the unreliability of most of 
the old texts. Yet the general deductions seem to be as before stated; 
first, the development for Florence and hence for the modern language 
was I; secondly, practically all the exceptions in modern Italian are 
plainly learned; thirdly, the numerous double forms in the old lan¬ 
guage all seem attributable to learned or dialectal influence with a 
very strong preponderance, besides, in favor of I. When Boccaccio 
uses securo and sicuro on the same page’, with sicuro he uses Flor¬ 
entine and with securo he is confused by the frequency with which 
he has heard securo among his acquaintances who do not speak Flor¬ 
entine and by the' Latin which he has studied and which was ever 
present with him in a hundred daily connections. 
§14. Note 1. For the E in del, see §20, note 6, and the Introduc¬ 
tion, §7. 
2. For E in hiatus, cf. also Napoli (Neapolis). 
