User:Benwing/Romance phonology

/x,y/ = x or y unpredictably /x/; /y/ = x or y, in different contexts

Development of, , ,
-(a,e,i)g(é,í)- > ∅:


 * -agé-, -egí-, ?-agí- > ∅ (but sigillum > *seǵello > Cat. segell, It. suggello; Pt. sêlo; Sp. sello; Fr. sceau)
 * veǵenti > It venti; > PWR *veínte > Sp. veinte, Fr. vingt, Pt. vinte, Cat. vint
 * digitum > Fr. doigt, It. dito, Sp. dedo, Pt. dedo, Cat. dit but Rom. deget
 * vagīna > It. guaína, Fr. gaine, Sp. vaina < vaína, Pt. bainha (ba-ínha), Cat. beina
 * rēgīna > Sp. reina (OSp reína), Pt. rainha (ra-ínha), Cat. reina, Fr. reine, It. reína/regina, Rom. regină
 * frigidum > It. freddo, Fr. froid < *frejdo, Sp. frío, Pt. frio, Cat. fred, Rom. frig
 * rigidum > Fr. raide/roide, Pt. rijo
 * triginta > It. trenti, Pt. trinta, Sp. trenta, Fr. trente, Cat. trenta
 * quadraginta > It. quaranta, Fr. quarante, Sp. cuarenta (OSp quaraenta), Pt. quarenta, Cat. quaranta
 * pagēse > It. paese, Sp./Pt./Cat. país, Fr. pays
 * magistrus > It. maestro, Sp. maestro, Fr. maître, Pt. mestre, Rom. maestru
 * rēge > It. re, Sp. rey, Pt. rei, Fr. roi, Rom. rege
 * lēge > It. legge, Sp. ley, Pt. lei, Fr. loi, Rom. lege
 * sagitta > It. saetta, Sp. saeta, Pt. seta, but Rom. săgeată

Spelling and pronunciation of palatal and related sounds
The following table shows the spelling of various coronal consonants in the standard Romance languages, including the "Old" versions of the Western languages. For a given language, a particular column shows the way the corresponding sound was spelled in the old version of that language, along with the cognate spelling and pronunciation the equivalent modern language.

For example, Old Spanish /ts/ was generally spelled ‹ç› or ‹c› depending on what followed, while /dz/ was spelled ‹z›. Both sounds have merged in modern Spanish in both spelling and pronunciation, usually pronounced either (in Northern and Central Spain) or  (elsewhere), and consistently spelled ‹c› if ‹e› or ‹i› follows and ‹z› if not. The use of ‹c› or ‹z› in spelling particular words is related only to the following letter and has no relation to whether the corresponding Old Spanish word had /ts/ or /dz/.

Note that within any particular set of language stages, the sounds and spellings in a particular column are all cognate (unless specifically indicated otherwise), but the sounds are not necessarily cognate across languages. For example, Spanish beso and Portuguese beijo are cognate (both mean "kiss" and are derived from Latin ), but the Spanish word has /s/ (Old Spanish /z/) while the Portuguese word has /ʒ/.

Example words with development shown, occasional sound development shown
Other words for Romansh:
 * For ll: sella "seat" > sella; anellu "ring" > anè (pl. anels); pelle "skin" > pel; stēlla "star" > staila; caballu "horse" > chaval; vitellu "calf" > vadè (pl. vadels); cipulla "onion" > tschagula; medulla "marrow" > magugl; capillu "hair" > chavel
 * For cc: vacca "cow" > vatga; saccu "sac" > satg; siccāre "to dry" > setgar; bucca "mouth" > bucca (but cf. Puter vacha, sach, secher, buocha)
 * For pp:
 * For tt: gutta "drop" > gut; plattu "flat" > plat, fem. platta; gattu/gatta "cat" > giat/giatta; mittere > metter "to put"
 * For c: fōcu "fire" > fieu; secūritāte > segirtad (PT sgürezza); porcu > portg; porcellu > purschè (pl. purschels); acūtu "sharp" > giz (PT agüz, fem. agüzza); cūra > tgira; corpus > corp; curtu > curt; colōre > colur
 * For ti: bestia > biestga
 * For b: tabula > tavla "roadsign"
 * For nn: annu "year" > onn; pinna "feather" > penna "pen"
 * For mm: flamma "flame" > flomma
 * For ss: passu "step" > pass; massa "mass" > massa; grossu "thick" > gross
 * For rr: terra "earth" > terra
 * For

Development of Romance consonants
The following table shows the main outcomes of Proto-Romance vowels and consonants in the various Romance languages.

Notes:
 * C- means after a non-vowel (word-initially or after a consonant), and before a vowel. Note that in the clusters of the form Cr which can occur word-initially (/br,pr,fr,dr,tr,gr,cr/), the C in question behaves in almost all respects like it is followed by a vowel.  For example, Proto-Romance /matre/ "mother" > Spanish, with lenition of /t/ exactly as would occur between vowels, and /matre/ > Early Old French  (later Old French , modern ), with similar lenition of /t/ (again, which normally only occurs between vowels) and raising of /a/ > /e/ (which only occurs in open syllables, which are normally syllables followed by only a single consonant).
 * -C- means between vowels. This normally applies before any language-specific vowel deletions happened, but after the Proto-Romance intertonic vowel deletions (which produced clusters like /kl/, e.g. Appendix Probi oricla < auricula "(little) ear").
 * -C means after a vowel (word-finally or before a consonant). Word-final outcomes of this sort generally occurred after deletion of final short vowels.  In particular, Catalan, Occitan, and Old French deleted all unstressed final vowels except Proto-Romance /a/ (from Latin a,ā).  This deletion affected both absolutely final vowels (including vowels before final -m in Latin, which had been lost by this time), and final vowels before final -s.  The only exception was when deletion would result in a consonant cluster that could not appear in a syllable coda, e.g. /tr/; in this case, a prop vowel (/e/ or /ǝ/) would appear.  In these three languages, newly final obstruents were devoiced, e.g. /b d g dʒ v ð z ʒ/ > /p t k tʃ f θ s ʃ/.  Later on, many of these final consonants were deleted in French; subsequent to this, final /ǝ/ (from final /a/ or the prop vowel) disappeared, but the newly final consonants resulting from this were not devoiced or otherwise changed, and should be treated as medial consonants.
 * The above three are given in the order C-, -C-, -C. If one is omitted, the previous one applies.  For example, t-, -[ð]- means that [ð] occurs after a vowel regardless of what follows.
 * Something like a(…u) means "a if /u/ occurs in the next syllable".
 * Something like a(n) means "a if /n/ immediately follows".
 * Something like (n)a means "a if /n/ immediately precedes".
 * NES = northern European Spanish; AS = American Spanish; Nu = Nuorese Sardinian; Lo = Logudorese Sardinian.

Development of Romance consonants with intermixed examples
In Spanish, (Vj) means that a j appeared before a consonant, but was later absorbed by the preceding vowel: aj or ej → ‹e›, ij → ‹i›, oj or uj → ‹ue›.

Demonstrative pronouns and locative demonstratives

 * Demonstratives