This suffixation coincided with diphthongisation, turning the stressed-i into a glide. InBanat, however, an alternate suffixed form developed also, in which the stressed syllable remained the same; these forms coexisted, occupying different nuances (seeusage notes).
Și aceastea zicând,abiia opriră pre mulțime să nu facă lui jrătvă[sic].
And with these sayingsscarce restrained they the people, that they had not done sacrifice unto him. (Acts 14:18)
1848 July,Costache Negruzzi, “Scrisoarea XXIV (Un vis.) [Letter 24 (A dream.)]”, inPăcatele tinerețelor [The sins of youth][3],Iași, published1857, page334:
1987 February 12,Marin Sorescu, “Descoperiri prea mari [Discoveries too great]”, inTribuna, year 31, number 7,Cluj-Napoca, page 5; collected inEcuatorul și polii [The Equator and the poles],Timișoara: Facla,1989,→ISBN, page84:
Pe-o piatră de hotar vezi un gîndac. Pe multele-i picioare-abia se ține.
On a boundary stone you see a bug. On its many legs it canhardly stand.
Abia ai loc să te-ntorci înăuntrul ei,abia poți zări ceva în dârele de lumină de pe ferestrele de sus, șiabia poți respira fumul gros, mirosind a tămâie și ceară, ce umple golul dintre pereții de piatră brută.
Youscarcely have any room inside it to turn, you canscarcely see anything in the streaks of light coming though the upper windows, and you canscarcely breathe the thick smoke, smelling of frankincense and wax, which fills the void between the bare stone walls.
Virtuțile socialiste nu au trecere, pentru că la noi limbajul virtuții este exclusiv bisericesc șiabia dacă are conținut moral[…], darămite unul politic.
Socialist virtues have no currency, given that here the language of virtue is exclusively ecclesiastic andbarely has any moral substance[…], let alone a political one.
Când amu Isac era sfârșit bl[a]g[oslo]veniia lui Iacov, și Iacovabiia era ieșit afară dinaintea lui Isac tătâni-său, vine Isav acelui frate de la vânat.
And it came to pass, as soon as Isaac had made an end of blessing Jacob, and Jacob was yetscarce gone out from the presence of Isaac his father, that Esau his brother came in from his hunting. (Genesis 27:30)
1838 March 5,Grigore Alexandrescu, “Вᲈлпѣ, Калᲈл ші Лᲈпᲈл [Vulpea, Calul și Lupul,The Fox, the Horse and the Wolf]”, inFlorian Aaron, editor,Романіа [Romania],Bucharest, page220:
О вᲈлпе де ані̆ мікъ,ꙟнсъ де мінте маре, Ші каре месеріаабіа ш’о ꙟнчепᲈсе[…]
O vulpe de ani mică, însă de minte mare Și care meseriaabia și-o începuse[…]
A fox young of years, but great of wit, And which hadonly just begun its profession[…]
1889 December 31,Ion Luca Caragiale(unsigned), “Sfintele serbători [The holy feasts]”, inEra Nouă [The New Age], year 1, number13,Iași, page 4:
Dar stăpănii unde sunt? La ceasul acesta ei stau a lene in paturile lor. Uniiabia se trezesc, alțiiabia sĕ[sic] culcă.
But where are their masters? At this hour they languish in their beds. Some arejust waking up, others arejust going to bed.
Sentences usingabia in the temporal sense of “only just” can be followed by a correlative sentence introduced with the conjunctioncă that describes an event immediate to that of the first sentence:Abia se terminase unul, că începu altul.(“One had just ended, when another one began.”)
The same sense may seeabia followed byce in the manner of its synonymnumai and a few other temporal adverbs.
When modifying a verb (in any compatible sense),abia may uncommonly be followed bycă, to no change in meaning.
Where it can be translated as “barely”,abia can for emphasis be followed by the conjunctiondacă.
The Banat dialect traditionally preserved a sense distinction between the ubiquitous pronunciation/aˈbja/, which was reserved for the sense “with difficulty”, and the alternative pronunciation/aˈbi.a/, used for the sense “in small measure”.[1] This differentiation is not widely known and might well be extinct.
Din prototipulabì, conservat în Mehedințĭ, s’a format la Românĭ nu numaĭ prin diftongireabĭà „à peine“, dar tot-o-dată șiabía „a peu près, presque“ prin acățarea emfaticuluia. Termenul se întrebuințéză până astăḑĭ în Banat, alăturĭ cu abĭà și fără a se confunda cu acesta, deși ambele cuvinte se asémĕnă atât de mult, fie prin son, fie prin sens.[…]„abiuța șiabía, cu tonul pe í, însemnéză: de tot puțin; de ex.: apa eabiuța saŭabía, adecă abĭa călduță“ (S. Liuba, Banat, com. Maĭdan).
From the originalabi, preserved inMehedinți, was formed not only /aˈbja/ (“hardly”), but also /aˈbi.a/ (“almost, in small measure”) through the epenthesis of emphatica. The latter is used inBanat until our times, together with the former and without being confused for it, even though both words resemble each other so much, be it through sound or meaning.[…]“abiuța and /aˈbi.a/, with stress on thei, mean: a little bit, for example: the water is just a little warm” (S. Liuba, Banat,Brădișoru de Jos, formerly Maidan).
