(1916) and Corominas (1981)– proposed a hypothetical *montanea, neuter plural of *montaneum, also present in Meyer-Lübke, (1935 [1911 –1920]).

It is well known that, in the field of historical lexicology, the addition of an asterisk before a term marks it as a reconstructed word, that is, its existence has not been confirmed in any text. It may be convenient to avoid any analysis beyond this point and to recognise the value of this hypothetic etymon without further ado.

3.2. However, thanks to the etymological work carried out outside the Hispanic domain, there are a few possible new hypotheses. In effect, we would like to provide here information for the non-etymological community about some instruments available online, in languages other than Spanish. In 1995, in the context of the XXI Congress of Romance Linguistics, a round table debated critically about how to continue the line of the monumental Französisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch (FEW), probably the most complete etymological work in the field of Romance linguistics, written by Walther von Wartburg between 1910 and 1940. The project Dictionnaire Étymologique Roman (DÉRom) emerged in 2008 from the reflections, projections, and challenges discussed at that round table. Its purpose was to continue previous etymological work, with the FEW as the main source of reference, while expanding its reach towards the entire Romance language domain. New advances in linguistics and the digitalisation of a significant number of textual traditions, as well as the arrival of word banks, were fundamental for to this process. The project’s results are constantly updated and are available online (free access) so that anyone can obtain, with variable luck, new etymological information.

3.3. As a way to corroborate, for example, whether the hypothetical form *montanea has been updated, we decided to check the DÉRom, which includes this example of the proto-Romance term: */monˈt-ani-a/: “Ce lexème s’analyse, en synchronie protoromane, comme un dérivé en */-ˈani-/, suffixe (rare) à valeur collective” (cfr. DÉRom: s.v. */monˈt-ani-a/). Evidently, the problem is still there, as the reconstructed etymon persists, but with a new compositional element that can help understand further the structure of the word itself. This information can shed light onto the structure, distribution, and presence of vulgar Latin, which later led to this proto-Romance term as described in DÉRom.

4. Hápax?

There are cases in which a word has been defined only once in a lexicographical repertoire and there is no other reference to it. Can we speak of phantom words (Álvarez de Miranda 2007)? Or should we simply speak of a single recurrence in a dictionary? Could this be an example of a hápax? In general, the historiographic study of a dictionary requires an analysis of the lexical items it contains. This determines which elements are true contributions by distinguishing original work from mere transfers from previous publications. More often than expected, there are surprises, for instance, not finding a word in other lexicographic repertoires.

4.1 In the case of the Spanish term referring to the inhabitant of Betsamés, betsamita, we have detected that it has not appeared lemmatised within the collated body of work, except in the Diccionario de chilenismos y de otras voces y locuciones viciosas by the Chilean priest Manuel Antonio Román: