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The Latin verb for studying is studere, but a number of descendants look as if they came from studiare. These include the Italian 'studiare', French 'étudier', and the Spanish 'estudiar'.
Was there ever a Latin verb studiare? If yes, was it interchangeable with studere and do we know how it came about? (I could imagine studiare being derived from studium or arising from changes in inflected forms like studeo > studio.) If no, does something else explain the abundant -i- in the descendants?
I was wondering if the verb *studiare was classified into the 1st conjugation in non-Classical Latin on the basis of being transformed into a denominal verb (cf. studium > *studiare). NB: studium is formed on the basis of studere and not the other way around. This proposal/hypothesis is made on the basis that 1st conjugation is the one where more (but not all, of course) denominal verbs are found. I've not checked it out but at first sight it seems true. Do you share this intuition?
