Palatalization in the Romance languages encompasses various historical sound changes which caused consonants to develop a palatal articulation or secondary articulation, as well as certain further developments such as affrication. It resulted in the creation of several consonants that had not existed in Classical Latin, such as the Italian .
Certain types of palatalization affected all Romance languages, and were in some cases discernible in Late Latin, while others affected only a subset of languages and are only known from later evidence. Palatalization was not a single event but rather occurred multiple times in the development of Romance, in different places and in different ways.
Definition Palatalization strictly speaking refers either to a change in a consonant's place of articulation, such as when the alveolar nasal develops to a palatal nasal , or to a change in secondary articulation, such as when develops to (still alveolar but with the tongue body lifted towards the palate).
In Romance linguistics, palatalization is also loosely used to refer to certain sound-changes that are assumed to have followed from 'true' palatalization. For instance, the development from the Latin in to the Italian in is referred to as 'palatalization', despite the resulting not being a palatal sound, because intermediate stages like , may be inferred.
The Latin front vowels developed into a palatal approximant when they were unstressed and followed by another vowel. This occurred regularly by Late Latin. The resulting could then palatalize a preceding consonant. Whether this is best modelled as allophonic () or phonemic () is a matter of scholarly disagreement.Per . For more on this, see Proto-Romance language#Palatalized consonants. This article uses the representation .
In addition to palatalization, often geminated preceding consonants. For example and can be reconstructed as developing the pronunciations and , which may have been a means of resolving the "unnatural" syllabifications and . In any case every sequence other than shows some evidence of lengthening in Romance.
Palatalization of may have occurred in more than one wave. This has been argued on the grounds that in Western Romance the vowels were not affected by metaphony if followed by original but were affected if followed by other sequences. The implication is that original had lost their palatal element by the time metaphony began to operate. Compare French outcomes like < * < (without metaphony) versus < * < (with metaphony).
Palatalization of may have occurred later (and independently) in Balkan Romance than elsewhere. This has been argued on the grounds that languages like Romanian show the same outcomes for consonants followed by primary (from Late Latin), secondary (from later diphthongization), and the vowel . Compare Romanian outcomes like < , < * < , and < .
/tj kj/
Early evidence Evidence of the palatalization of appears as early as the 2nd–3rd centuries AD in the form of spelling mistakes interchanging and before a following vowel, as in for . This is assumed to reflect the development of in this environment to .
The affrication of can also be dated to the 2nd–3rd centuries AD. The evidence includes inscriptional use of or in place of and commentary by grammarians from the late 4th century onwards about the pronunciation of words spelled with + vowel. The latter include Consentius (5th century), Servius, Pompeius (5th–6th century), Papirius (probably the same as Papirianus, ca. late 4th to early 6th century), and Isidore (7th century).
The affrication of seems to have occurred at a later date than that of ,; ; possibly as late as the 6th–7th centuries AD. Non-affricated reflexes of are found in some borrowings into West Germanic, for instance the Old High German and Old Saxon 'steel' < , Middle High German 'wooden beam' < , and Old Saxon 'vetch' < . Borrowings into Albanian show a palatal stop (spelt ) as the outcome of both Latin and /k/ before front vowels, whereas yields Albanian or sometimes . Examples include 'cheek' < 'face'; 'toll, duty' < 'trade'; 'well, fountain' < 'well'; and 'March' < 'March'. Evidence for affrication of includes the spelling for , which can be dated to the sixth century. Procopius, writing in Greek circa 553-555, uses the spellings () for and () for (De Aedificiis 4.4.3), which suggests that Latin had developed to an affricate. On the other hand he writes for Latin before a front vowel, as in () for , which suggests that at the time was not affricated in that context.
Romance outcomes All Romance languages reflect the palatalization of Latin , which can be reconstructed as developing into affricates and later, in some languages, into fricatives.
In Tuscan, Corsican, and some Rhaeto-Romance languages, the outcomes of are more anterior (alveolar) affricates than the outcomes of , whereas in other varieties of Romance, the outcomes of share the same place of articulation.
In Romanian, yield and sometimes . According to one view, the regular outcome of was before or word-final , as in , < *, ; and before non-final , as in , < , .
In Sardinia and Southern Italy the original outcome of can be reconstructed as or .
There are competing explanations for the Western Romance outcome for (and likewise for /k/ before front vowels). One is that the initial result was (or ); which later depalatalized to .; (That this process necessarily implies a stage is disputed.) Another is that the in palatalized to and then the sequence was reidentified as , which then affricated to .
Intervocalic In Western Romance, intervocalic typically has a voiceless outcome (which implies that it was initially geminated) whereas intervocalic can have a voiced outcome. This contrast in voicing is assumed to result from the earlier palatalization of compared to . However, intervocalic can alternatively show a voiceless outcome identical to that of or . There are several proposed explanations for the divergent outcomes of intervocalic in Western Romance languages. One is that geminated to only in certain words, with Catalan for example reflecting * < . Another is that the voiceless outcomes resulted from early confusion between and , perhaps at a time when or was a potential realization of either sequence.
The voiced outcome normally associated with is sometimes found in words that originally had intervocalic , such as Portuguese < and < .
Some outcomes of intervocalic /tj kj/ Branch Language tj kj Sardinian Campidanese~Central Sardinian~Logudorese t͡ːs~θː~tː Western Romance West/North Friulian t͡ʃ East Friulian s Fassan t͡s t͡ʃ Comelican ð/θ θ Livinallonghese t͡s t͡ʃ Surselvan, Sutselvan, Surmiran, Engadinian t͡s t͡ʃ Venetian (t)s~θ (t)s~θ Ligurian s (t͡s) Lombard s s/ʃ Picard ʃ French jz s Franco-Provençal z (ʒ, θ) s (ʃ, θ) Auvergnat, Occitan z s Catalan z/ð s Spanish θ Portuguese z s Others Romanian t͡s (t͡ʃ) Vegliote s Calabrese t͡ːs Tuscan and Corsican t͡ːs t͡ːʃ
Postconsonantal When preceded by a consonant, remained voiceless in Western Romance. The development of to in Tuscan likely proceeded via an intermediate stage of *. Languagestj, skjptj, ktj, ttj, kkj(n, r, l) + tj, kjTuscanʃː(t͡ːs, t͡ːʃ)(t͡s, t͡ʃ)FrenchjsssOld Spanisht͡st͡st͡s
Intervocalically, the sequences could both merge with in an early type of lenition. Among the first examples of this is the spelling for in the graffiti of Pompeii. could either participate in this merger or survive long enough to develop in parallel with .
The outcomes in many Romance languages are often explained by reconstructing a stage where in general (as well as /ɡ/ before a front vowel) merged with which then underwent fortition (especially at the start of a word or morpheme), often yielding an affricate like . Some inscriptions show interchange between the spellings , as in for 'deacon' or for 'today'.
Evidence for the fortition of original includes for and for , found in inscriptions from the third century AD. Initial appears to have remained a palatal glide in Southern Italian, some dialects of Sardinian, and (in some contexts) Castilian, which suggests that its fortition to an affricate or fricative may not been complete in Late Latin or Proto-Romance. However, it is possible that Southern Italian and Castilian did not conserve the original value of Latin but rather redeveloped the glide via later lenition (note that intervocalic shows the same outcome).
Some outcomes of and : Southern Italian dialects show for all three. Spanish shows a split outcome for Latin word-initial . Before it usually became , whereas before , it usually became (but was lost in unstressed syllables). Nearby Gascon is similar. Between vowels, all merged; the original outcome was likely a geminate palatal consonant [ʝʝ], which was then simplified along with other geminates and became the consonant spelled in modern Spanish. This palatal consonant was lost after a front vowel in Old Spanish, as in > , > , and > . After a consonant, developed into the Old Spanish voiceless affricate , as in > or > (but also ). In Romanian, regularly became (from earlier *), as in 'kernel' < . This is distinct from the outcomes of medial and . In Standard Italian, and yield and yields either or . (Between vowels, the outcomes are geminates.) The outcome of is always at the start of a word and always after a consonant (with the exception of < 'shame'). Further examples include > and > . Between vowels, usually results in but sometimes also . These outcomes seem consistent with an original merger of , and (initial or intervocalic) as , followed by fortition of to . The reason for the variation in outcomes of is unclear. In Sardinian, seems to have merged with in all contexts. In French, the outcomes of appear consistent with an early merger into in all positions followed by fortition of word-initially or after , yielding modern French . Examples include > and > . (The outcome of is different from the usual outcome of original /rj/ in French.) The sequence developed to (also the usual outcome of /nj/), as in > and > .
Some outcomes of Latin /dj ɡj/ and /j/ Branch Language intervocalic word-initial ɡj j dj dj j Sardinian Campidanese ∅ d͡ʒ Central Sardinian ∅ j Logudorese ∅ j j/d͡ʒ/d͡z Western Romance West/North Friulian j/∅ j/z ɟ/j/d͡ʒ j/(d)ʒ/d͡z East Friulian j/∅ j/z j/ʒ/z Fassan j/∅ ʒ z ʒ Comelican j d/ð Livinallonghese j j/zʲ d͡ʒ ʒ Surselvan ɟ ɟ/j d͡z ɟ Sutselvan ɟ(ʒ) z ɟ ɟ/ʒSurmiran d͡zEngadinian ɟ/j d͡z ɟ/j Venetian (d)z~ð(~d) (d)z~ð(~d) d͡ʒ/z j/(d)z~ð(~d) Ligurian d͡z z(d͡z) d͡z d͡ʒ z Lombard z ʒ/z z (d)ʒ Picard j ʒ French j ʒ Franco-Provençal j j/d͡z d͡z Auvergnat d͡z Occitan ʒ Catalan (d)ʒ Spanish j/∅ j j/x Portuguese ʒ Others Romanian j/∅ j z ʒ Vegliote d͡z j/∅ d͡z Calabrese j Tuscan d͡ːʒ d͡ːʒ, d͡ːz d͡ʒ Corsican ɟ ɟ/j ɟ/d͡ːz ɟ ɟ/d͡ʒ
In Central Italian, Southern Italian, and Western Romance languages, Latin became . In Central and Southern Italian, this occurs as a geminate between vowels. A geminate can be inferred for early Western Romance as well based on the evolution of preceding vowels.
In French, a few words show an alternative outcome with the fricative , corresponding to an original in Old French (and identical to the regular outcome of /mj/). Examples include 'linen' > , > 'strange', and > . This outcome may represent cases where /j/ did not palatalize the preceding /n/ but was strengthened into an affricate instead; alternatively, it has been explained as resulting from the affrication of a palatalized nasal (via a sequence of changes such as > > ). It has also been suggested that the words in question are 'learned', that is, borrowed from Latin early and subjected to the vernacular sound-changes > and > . As for the sequence , it regularly developed to [◌̃ʒ], again like /mj/; compare the regular development of to in words like > .