historical

Question 1

dates alphonsine

Answer 1

1250-1310

Question 2

why is it hard for us to know what vulgar latin (where spanish descends from) is like

Answer 2

it was never systematically written down. As the philologist Menéndez Pidal put it (1968:3), el cantero más rudo, al grabar un letrero, se proponía escribir la lengua clásica ‘the least polished stone mason, when he carved a sign, tried to write the classical language.’ Only in a handful of inscriptions, prescriptive treatises such as the famous Appendix Probi, and the occasional non-standard text are we given a glimpse of how Latin was actually spoken by the population at large

Question 3

examples of syncope of intertonic or unstressed vowels from latin to spanish

Answer 3

ciudad < cīv(i)tātem, pueblo < pop(u)lum, ojo < oc(u)lum

Question 4

etymology of spanish ‘como’

Answer 4

vulgar latin quomo -> contraction of latin quo modo ‘in what way’