Editing Romance languages (section)

=== Consonants ===
Significant [[sound change]]s affected the consonants of the Romance languages.

==== Apocope ====
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There was a tendency to eliminate final consonants in Vulgar Latin, either by dropping them ([[apocope]]) or adding a vowel after them ([[epenthesis]]).

Many final consonants were rare, occurring only in certain prepositions (e.g. {{lang|la|ad}} "towards", {{lang|la|apud}} "at, near (a person)"), conjunctions ({{lang|la|sed}} "but"), demonstratives (e.g. {{lang|la|illud}} "that (over there)", {{lang|la|hoc}} "this"), and nominative singular noun forms, especially of neuter nouns (e.g. {{lang|la|lac}} "milk", {{lang|la|mel}} "honey", {{lang|la|cor}} "heart"). Many of these prepositions and conjunctions were replaced by others, while the nouns were regularized into forms based on their oblique stems that avoided the final consonants (e.g. *{{lang|la|lacte}}, *{{lang|la|mele}}, *{{lang|la|core}}).

Final ''-m'' was dropped in Vulgar Latin.<ref name="Gabriel, Gess, Meisenburg">{{Cite book |url=https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/9783110550283/html |title=Manual of Romance Phonetics and Phonology |year=2021|publisher=De Gruyter |isbn=978-3-11-055028-3 |editor-last=Gabriel |editor-first=Christoph |page=229 |doi=10.1515/9783110550283 |hdl=1983/44e3b3cd-164e-496b-a7a6-6b3a492e4c48 |s2cid=243922354 |editor-last2=Gess |editor-first2=Randall |editor-last3=Meisenburg |editor-first3=Trudel |access-date=2023-09-06 |archive-date=2023-09-06 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230906182812/https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/9783110550283/html |url-status=live }}</ref> Even in [[Classical Latin]], final {{lang|la|-am}}, {{lang|la|-em}}, {{lang|la|-um}} ([[suffix#Inflectional suffixes|inflectional suffixes]] of the [[accusative case]]) were often [[elision|elided]] in [[meter (poetry)|poetic meter]], suggesting the {{lang|la|m}} was weakly pronounced, probably marking the [[nasal vowel|nasalisation]] of the vowel before it. This nasal vowel lost its nasalization in the Romance languages except in monosyllables, where it became {{IPA|/n/}} e.g. Spanish {{lang|es|quien}} < ''quem'' "whom",<ref name="Gabriel, Gess, Meisenburg" /> French {{lang|fr|rien}} "anything" < ''rem'' "thing";{{sfn|Boyd-Bowman|1980|p= 133}} note especially French and Catalan {{lang|fr|mon}} < ''meum'' "my (m.sg.)" which are derived from monosyllabic {{IPA|/meu̯m/}} > *{{IPA|/meu̯n/, /mun/}}, whereas Spanish disyllabic {{lang|es|mío}} and Portuguese and Catalan monosyllabic {{lang|pt|meu}} are derived from disyllabic {{IPA|/ˈme.um/}} > *{{IPA|/ˈmeo/}}.{{Citation needed|date=March 2021}}

As a result, only the following final consonants occurred in Vulgar Latin:
* Final {{lang|la|-t}} in third-person singular verb forms, and {{lang|la|-nt}} (later reduced in many languages to ''-n'') in third-person plural verb forms.{{sfn|Maiden|2016|page=500}}
* Final {{lang|la|-s}} (including {{lang|la|-x}}) in a large number of morphological endings (verb endings {{lang|la|-ās/-ēs/-īs/-is}}, {{lang|la|-mus}}, {{lang|la|-tis}}; nominative singular {{lang|la|-us/-is}}; plural {{lang|la|-ās/-ōs/-ēs}}) and certain other words ({{lang|la|trēs}} "three", {{lang|la|sex}} "six", {{lang|la|crās}} "tomorrow", etc.).
* Final {{lang|la|-n}} in some monosyllables (often from earlier {{lang|la|-m}}).
* Final {{lang|la|-r}}, {{lang|la|-d}} in some prepositions (e.g. {{lang|la|ad}}, {{lang|la|per}}), which were [[clitic]]s{{citation needed|date=July 2022}} that attached phonologically to the following word.
* Very occasionally, final {{lang|la|-c}}, e.g. [[Occitan language|Occitan]] {{lang|oc|oc}} "yes" < ''hoc'', [[Old French]] {{lang|fro|avuec}} "with" < ''apud hoc'' (although these instances were possibly protected by a final [[epenthesis|epenthetic]] vowel at one point).

Final {{lang|la|-t}} was eventually lost in many languages, although this often occurred several centuries after the Vulgar Latin period. For example, the reflex of {{lang|fro|-t}} was dropped in [[Old French]] and [[Old Spanish]] only around 1100. In Old French, this occurred only when a vowel still preceded the {{lang|fro|t}} (generally {{IPA|/ə/}} < Latin {{lang|la|a}}). Hence ''amat'' "he loves" > Old French {{lang|fro|aime}} but ''venit'' "he comes" > Old French {{lang|fro|vient}}: the {{IPA|/t/}} was never dropped and survives into Modern French in [[liaison (French)|liaison]], e.g. {{lang|fr|vient-il?}} "is he coming?" {{IPA|/vjɛ̃ti(l)/}} (the corresponding {{IPA|/t/}} in ''aime-t-il?'' is analogical, not inherited). Old French also kept the third-person plural ending {{lang|fro|-nt}} intact.

In Italo-Romance and the [[Eastern Romance languages]], eventually all final consonants were either lost or protected by an epenthetic vowel, except for some articles and a few monosyllabic prepositions ''con'', ''per'', ''in''. Modern Standard Italian still has very few consonant-final words, although Romanian has resurfaced them through later loss of final {{IPA|/u/}} and {{IPA|/i/}}. For example, ''amās'' "you love" > ''ame'' > Italian {{lang|it|ami}}; ''amant'' "they love" > *''aman'' > Ital. {{lang|it|amano}}. On the evidence of "sloppily written" [[Lombardic language]] documents, however, the loss of final {{IPA|/s/}} in northern Italy did not occur until the 7th or 8th century, after the Vulgar Latin period, and the presence of many former final consonants is betrayed by the [[syntactic gemination]] (''raddoppiamento sintattico'') that they trigger. It is also thought that after a long vowel {{IPA|/s/}} became {{IPA|/j/}} rather than simply disappearing: ''nōs'' > ''noi'' "we", ''crās'' > ''crai'' "tomorrow" (southern Italy).<ref>{{Cite book |last=Sampson |first=Rodney |url=https://www.worldcat.org/title/423583247 |title=Vowel prosthesis in Romance: a diachronic study |date=2010 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-954115-7 |series=Oxford linguistics |location=Oxford |oclc=423583247}}</ref> In unstressed syllables, the resulting diphthongs were simplified: ''canēs'' > *{{IPA|/ˈkanej/}} > ''cani'' "dogs"; ''amīcās'' > *{{IPA|/aˈmikaj/}} > ''amiche'' {{IPA|/aˈmike/}} "(female) friends", where nominative ''amīcae'' should produce ''**amice'' rather than ''amiche'' (note masculine ''amīcī'' > ''amici'' not ''*amichi'').

Central [[Western Romance languages]] eventually regained a large number of final consonants through the general loss of final {{IPA|/e/}} and {{IPA|/o/}}, e.g. Catalan {{lang|ca|llet}} "milk" < ''lactem'', {{lang|ca|foc}} "fire" < ''focum'', {{lang|ca|peix}} "fish" < ''piscem''. In French, most of these secondary final consonants (as well as primary ones) were lost before around 1700, but tertiary final consonants later arose through the loss of {{IPA|/ə/}} < ''-a''. Hence masculine ''frīgidum'' "cold" > Old French {{lang|fro|froit}} {{IPA|/'frwεt/}} > ''froid'' {{IPA|/fʁwa/}}, feminine ''frīgidam'' > Old French {{lang|fro|froide}} {{IPA|/'frwεdə/}} > ''froide'' {{IPA|/fʁwad/}}.

==== Palatalization ====
{{Main|Palatalization in the Romance languages}}
In Romance languages the term 'palatalization' is used to describe the phonetic evolution of velar stops preceding a front vowel and of consonant clusters involving yod or of the palatal approximant itself.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Barbato |first=Marcello |date=20 June 2022 |title=The Early History of Romance Palatalizations |url=https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780199384655.013.750 |access-date=11 September 2023 |website=oxfordre.com |doi=10.1093/acrefore/9780199384655.013.750 |isbn=978-0-19-938465-5 |archive-date=18 September 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230918110528/https://oxfordre.com/linguistics/display/10.1093/acrefore/9780199384655.001.0001/acrefore-9780199384655-e-750 |url-status=live }}</ref> The process involving gestural blending and articulatory reinforcement, starting from [[Late Latin]] and Early Romance, generated a new series of consonants in Romance languages.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Recasens |first=Daniel |date=30 July 2020 |title=Palatalizations in the Romance Languages |url=https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780199384655.013.435 |access-date=11 September 2023 |website=oxfordre.com |doi=10.1093/acrefore/9780199384655.013.435 |isbn=978-0-19-938465-5 |archive-date=18 September 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230918110527/https://oxfordre.com/linguistics/display/10.1093/acrefore/9780199384655.001.0001/acrefore-9780199384655-e-435 |url-status=live }}</ref>

==== Lenition ====
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[[Stop consonant]]s shifted by [[lenition]] in Vulgar Latin in some areas.

The voiced [[labial consonant]]s {{IPA|/b/}} and {{IPA|/w/}} (represented by {{angbr|b}} and {{angbr|v}}, respectively) both developed a [[voiced bilabial fricative|fricative]] {{IPA|[β]}} as an intervocalic allophone.<ref>Pope (1934).</ref> This is clear from the orthography; in medieval times, the spelling of a consonantal {{angbr|v}} is often used for what had been a {{angbr|b}} in Classical Latin, or the two spellings were used interchangeably. In many Romance languages (Italian, French, Portuguese, Romanian, etc.), this fricative later developed into a {{IPA|/v/}}; but in others (Spanish, Galician, some Catalan and Occitan dialects, etc.) reflexes of {{IPA|/b/}} and {{IPA|/w/}} simply merged into a single phoneme.{{sfn|Alkire|Rosen|2010|pp=32–33}}

Several other consonants were "softened" in intervocalic position in Western Romance (Spanish, Portuguese, French, Northern Italian), but normally not phonemically in the rest of Italy (except some cases of "elegant" or Ecclesiastical words),{{Clarification needed|date=March 2024}} nor apparently at all in Romanian. The dividing line between the two sets of dialects is called the [[La Spezia–Rimini Line]] and is one of the most important [[isogloss]] bundles of the Romance dialects.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Marotta |first=Giovanna |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/cambridge-handbook-of-romance-linguistics/phonetics-and-phonology/31D83420153A0D7655CFE38EF54CF443 |title=The Cambridge Handbook of Romance Linguistics |publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=2022 |isbn=978-1-108-48579-1 |editor-last=Ledgeway |editor-first=Adam |series=Cambridge Handbooks in Language and Linguistics |pages=181–318 |chapter=Structure of the Syllable – 5.5.3 Lenition |doi=10.1017/9781108580410.006 |editor-last2=Maiden |editor-first2=Martin}}</ref> The changes (instances of diachronic lenition resulting in [[phonological change|phonological restructuring]]) are as follows:
Single voiceless plosives became [[voice (phonetics)|voiced]]: ''-p-, -t-, -c-'' > ''-b-, -d-, -g-''. Subsequently, in some languages they were further weakened, either becoming [[fricative]]s or [[approximant consonant|approximants]], {{IPA|[β̞], [ð̞], [ɣ˕]}} (as in Spanish) or disappearing entirely (such as {{IPA|/t/}} and {{IPA|/k/}} lost between vowels in French, but {{IPA|/p/}} > {{IPA|/v/}}). The following example shows progressive weakening of original /t/: e.g. ''vītam'' > Italian ''vita'' {{IPA|[ˈviːta]}}, Portuguese ''vida'' {{IPA|[ˈvidɐ]}} (European Portuguese {{IPA|[ˈviðɐ]}}), Spanish ''vida'' {{IPA|[ˈbiða]}} (Southern Peninsular Spanish {{IPA|[ˈbi.a]}}), and French ''vie'' {{IPA|[vi]}}. Some scholars have speculated that these sound changes may be due in part to the influence of [[Continental Celtic languages]],<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Martinet |first=André |date=1952 |title=Celtic lenition and Western Romance consonants |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/410513 |journal=Language |volume=28 |issue=2 |pages=214–217 |doi=10.2307/410513 |jstor=410513 |access-date=2022-11-26 |archive-date=2022-11-26 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221126165155/https://www.jstor.org/stable/410513 |url-status=live }}</ref> while scholarship of the past few decades has proposed internal motivations.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Cravens |first=Thomas D. |title=Comparative historical dialectology: Italo-Romance clues to Ibero-Romance sound change |publisher=John Benjamins Publishing |year=2002}}</ref>
* The voiced plosives {{IPA|/d/}} and {{IPA|/ɡ/}} tended to disappear.
* The plain [[sibilant consonant|sibilant]] ''-s-'' {{IPA|[s]}} was also voiced to {{IPA|[z]}} between vowels, although in many languages its spelling has not changed. (In Spanish, intervocalic {{IPA|[z]}} was later devoiced back to {{IPA|[s]}}; {{IPA|[z]}} is only found as an [[allophone]] of {{IPA|/s/}} before voiced consonants in Modern Spanish.)
* The [[geminate consonant|double]] plosives became single: ''-pp-, -tt-, -cc-, -bb-, -dd-, -gg-'' > ''-p-, -t-, -c-, -b-, -d-, -g-'' in most languages. Subsequently, in some languages the voiced forms were further weakened, either becoming fricatives or approximants, {{IPA|[β̞], [ð̞], [ɣ˕]}} (as in Spanish). In French spelling, double consonants are merely etymological, except for -ll- after -i (pronounced [ij]), in most cases.
* The double sibilant ''-ss-'' {{IPA|[sː]}} also became phonetically and phonemically single {{IPA|[s]}}, although in many languages its spelling has not changed. Double sibilant remains in some [[languages of Italy]], like Italian, Sardinian, and Sicilian.

The sound /h/ was lost but later reintroduced into individual Romance languages. The so-called ''h aspiré'' "aspirated h" in French, now completely silent, was a borrowing from [[Frankish language|Frankish]]. In Spanish, word-initial /f/ changed to /h/ during its [[Old Spanish|Medieval stage]] and was lost afterwards (for example ''farina'' > ''harina'').{{sfn|Alkire|Rosen|2010|p=34}} Romanian acquired it most likely from the adstrate.<ref name="Sala">{{Cite book |last=Sala |first=Marius |title=De la Latină la Română |publisher=Editura Pro Universitaria |year=2012 |isbn=978-606-647-435-1 |page=157 |trans-title=From Latin to Romanian}}</ref>

[[Geminate consonant|Consonant length]] is no longer phonemically distinctive in most Romance languages. However some [[languages of Italy]] (Italian, [[Sardinian language|Sardinian]], Sicilian, and numerous other varieties of central and southern Italy) do have long consonants like {{IPA|/bb/, /dd/, /ɡɡ/, /pp/, /tt/, /kk/, /ll/, /mm/, /nn/, /rr/, /ss/}}, etc., where the doubling indicates either actual length or, in the case of [[plosive consonants|plosives]] and [[affricate]]s, a short hold before the consonant is released, in many cases with distinctive lexical value: e.g. ''note'' {{IPA|/ˈnɔte/}} (notes) vs. ''notte'' {{IPA|/ˈnɔtte/}} (night), ''cade'' {{IPA|/ˈkade/}} (s/he, it falls) vs. ''cadde'' {{IPA|/ˈkadde/}} (s/he, it fell), ''caro'' {{IPA|/ˈkaro/}} (dear, expensive) vs. ''carro'' {{IPA|/ˈkarro/}} (cart, car). They may even occur at the beginning of words in [[Romanesco dialect|Romanesco]], Neapolitan, Sicilian and other southern varieties, and are occasionally indicated in writing, e.g. Sicilian ''cchiù'' (more), and ''ccà'' (here). In general, the consonants {{IPA|/b/}}, {{IPA|/ts/}}, and {{IPA|/dz/}} are long at the start of a word, while the [[archiphoneme]] {{IPA|<nowiki>|R|</nowiki>}}{{dubious|date=May 2017}} is realised as a [[trill consonant|trill]] {{IPA|/r/}} in the same position. In much of central and southern Italy, the affricates /tʃ/ and /dʒ/ weaken synchronically to fricative [ʃ] and [ʒ] between vowels, while their geminate congeners do not, e.g. ''cacio'' {{IPA|/ˈkatʃo/ → [ˈkaːʃo]}} (cheese) vs. ''caccio'' {{IPA|/ˈkattʃo/ → [ˈkattʃo]}} (I chase). In Italian the geminates /ʃʃ/, /ɲɲ/, and /ʎʎ/ are pronounced as long [ʃʃ], [ɲɲ], and [ʎʎ] between vowels, but normally reduced to short following pause: ''lasciare'' 'let, leave' or ''la sciarpa'' 'the scarf' with [ʃʃ], but post-pausal ''sciarpa'' with [ʃ].

A few languages have regained secondary geminate consonants. The double consonants of [[Piedmontese language|Piedmontese]] exist only after stressed {{IPA|/ə/}}, written ''ë'', and are not etymological: ''vëdde'' (Latin ''vidēre'', to see), ''sëcca'' (Latin ''sicca'', dry, feminine of ''sech''). In standard Catalan and Occitan, there exists a geminate sound {{IPA|/lː/}} written ''ŀl'' (Catalan) or ''ll'' (Occitan), but it is usually pronounced as a simple sound in colloquial (and even some formal) speech in both languages.

==== Vowel prosthesis ====
In [[Late Latin]] a [[prothesis (linguistics)|prosthetic]] vowel /i/ (lowered to /e/ in most languages) was inserted at the beginning of any word that began with {{IPA|/s/}} (referred to as ''s impura'') and a voiceless consonant (#sC- > isC-):{{sfn|Alkire|Rosen|2010|p=26}}
* ''scrībere'' 'to write' > Sardinian ''iscribere'', Spanish ''escribir'', Portuguese ''escrever'', Catalan ''escriure'', Old French ''escri(v)re'' (mod. ''écrire'');
* ''spatha'' "sword" > Sard ''ispada'', Sp/Pg ''espada'', Cat ''espasa'', OFr ''espeḍe'' (modern ''épée'');
* ''spiritus'' "spirit" > Sard ''ispìritu'', Sp ''espíritu'', Pg ''espírito'', Cat ''esperit'', French ''esprit'';
* ''Stephanum'' "Stephen" > Sard ''Istèvene'', Sp ''Esteban'', Cat ''Esteve'', Pg ''Estêvão'', OFr ''Estievne'' (mod. ''Étienne'');
* ''status'' "state" > Sard ''istadu'', Sp/Pg ''estado'', Cat ''estat'', OFr ''estat'' (mod. ''état'').
While Western Romance words fused the prosthetic vowel with the word, cognates in Eastern Romance and southern Italo-Romance did not, e.g. Italian ''scrivere'', ''spada'', ''spirito'', ''Stefano'', and ''stato'', Romanian ''scrie'', ''spată'', ''spirit'', ''Ștefan'' and ''stat''. In Italian, syllabification rules were preserved instead by vowel-final articles, thus feminine ''spada'' as ''la spada'', but instead of rendering the masculine ''*il stato'', ''lo stato'' came to be the norm. Though receding at present, Italian once had a prosthetic {{IPA|/i/}} maintaining /s/ syllable-final if a consonant preceded such clusters, so that 'in Switzerland' was ''in'' {{IPA|[i]}}''Svizzera''. Some speakers still use the prothetic {{IPA|[i]}} productively, and it is fossilized in a few set locutions such as ''in ispecie'' 'especially' or ''per iscritto'' 'in writing' (a form whose survival may have been buttressed in part by the word ''iscritto'' < Latin ''īnscrīptus'').