Editing Romance languages (section)

===== Metaphony =====
{{Main|Metaphony (Romance languages)}}
An early process that operated in all Romance languages to varying degrees was [[metaphony]] (vowel mutation), conceptually similar to the [[Germanic umlaut|umlaut]] process so characteristic of the [[Germanic languages]]. Depending on the language, certain stressed vowels were raised (or sometimes diphthongized) either by a final /i/ or /u/ or by a directly following /j/. Metaphony is most extensive in the Italo-Romance languages, and applies to nearly all languages in Italy; however, it is absent from Tuscan, and hence from standard Italian. In many languages affected by metaphony, a distinction exists between final /u/ (from most cases of Latin {{lang|la|-um}}) and final /o/ (from Latin {{lang|la|-ō}}, {{lang|la|-ud}} and some cases of {{lang|la|-um}}, esp. masculine "mass" nouns), and only the former triggers metaphony.

Some examples:
* In [[Servigliano]] in the [[Marche]] of Italy, stressed {{IPA|/ɛ e ɔ o/}} are raised to {{IPA|/e i o u/}} before final /i/ or /u/:<ref name="kaze1991">{{Cite journal |last=Kaze |first=Jeffery W. |year=1991 |title=Metaphony and Two Models for the Description of Vowel Systems |journal=Phonology |volume=8 |pages=163–170 |doi=10.1017/s0952675700001329 |jstor=4420029 |s2cid=60966393 |number=1}}</ref> {{IPA|/ˈmetto/}} "I put" vs. {{IPA|/ˈmitti/}} "you put" (< *metti < *mettes < Latin {{lang|la|mittis}}); {{IPA|/moˈdɛsta/}} "modest (fem.)" vs. {{IPA|/moˈdestu/}} "modest (masc.)"; {{IPA|/ˈkwesto/}} "this (neut.)" (< Latin {{lang|la|eccum istud}}) vs. {{IPA|/ˈkwistu/}} "this (masc.)" (< Latin {{lang|la|eccum istum}}).
* Calvallo in [[Basilicata]], [[southern Italy]], is similar, but the low-mid vowels {{IPA|/ɛ ɔ/}} are diphthongized to {{IPA|/je wo/}} rather than raised:<ref>{{Cite web |last=Calabrese |first=Andrea |title=Metaphony |url=http://homepages.uconn.edu/~anc02008/Papers/METAPHONY.pdf |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130921053600/http://homepages.uconn.edu/~anc02008/Papers/METAPHONY.pdf |archive-date=2013-09-21 |access-date=2012-05-15}}</ref> {{IPA|/ˈmette/}} "he puts" vs. {{IPA|/ˈmitti/}} "you put", but {{IPA|/ˈpɛnʒo/}} "I think" vs. {{IPA|/ˈpjenʒi/}} "you think".
* Metaphony also occurs in most northern Italian dialects, but only by (usually lost) final *i; apparently, final *u was lowered to *o (usually lost) before metaphony could take effect.
* Some of the [[Astur-Leonese language]]s in northern Spain have the same distinction between final /o/ and /u/<ref>{{Cite web |title=ALVARO ARIAS CABAL – Publicaciones |url=http://personales.uniovi.es/web/ariasal/ |website=personales.uniovi.es |access-date=2015-12-30 |archive-date=2021-04-29 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210429121158/https://personales.uniovi.es/web/ariasal/ |url-status=live }}</ref> as in the Central-Southern Italian languages,<ref name="penny1994">{{Cite journal |last=Penny |first=Ralph |year=1994 |title=Continuity and Innovation in Romance: Metaphony and Mass-Noun Reference in Spain and Italy |journal=The Modern Language Review |volume=89 |pages=273–281 |doi=10.2307/3735232 |jstor=3735232 |number=2}}</ref> with /u/ triggering metaphony.<ref name="AAC">Álvaro Arias. "[https://minerva.usc.es/xmlui/bitstream/handle/10347/5730/pg_113-142_moenia11.pdf?sequence=1 La armonización vocálica en fonología funcional (de lo sintagmático en fonología a propósito de dos casos de metafonía hispánica)] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180119060648/https://minerva.usc.es/xmlui/bitstream/handle/10347/5730/pg_113-142_moenia11.pdf?sequence=1 |date=2018-01-19 }}", ''Moenia'' 11 (2006): 111–139.</ref> The plural of masculine nouns in these dialects ends in ''-os'', which does not trigger metaphony, unlike in the singular (vs. Italian plural {{lang|it|-i}}, which does trigger metaphony).
* Sardinian has allophonic raising of mid vowels {{IPA|/ɛ ɔ/}} to {{IPA|[e o]}} before final /i/ or /u/. This has been phonemicized in the [[Campidanese dialect]] as a result of the subsequent raising of final /e o/ to /i u/.
* Raising of {{IPA|/ɔ/}} to {{IPA|/o/}} occurs sporadically in Portuguese in the masculine singular, e.g. {{lang|pt|porco}} {{IPA|/ˈporku/}} "pig" vs. ''porcos'' {{IPA|/ˈpɔrkus/}} "pig". It is thought that Galician-Portuguese at one point had singular /u/ vs. plural /os/, exactly as in modern Astur-Leonese.<ref name="penny1994" />
* In all of the Western Romance languages, final /i/ (primarily occurring in the first-person singular of the [[preterite]]) raised mid-high {{IPA|/e o/}} to {{IPA|/i u/}}, e.g. Portuguese {{lang|pt|fiz}} "I did" (< *fidzi < *fedzi < Latin {{lang|la|fēcī}}) vs. ''fez'' "he did" (< *fedze < Latin {{lang|la|fēcit}}). Old Spanish similarly had {{lang|osp|fize}} "I did" vs. {{lang|osp|fezo}} "he did" (''-o'' by analogy with ''amó'' "he loved"), but subsequently generalized stressed /i/, producing modern ''hice'' "I did" vs. ''hizo'' "he did". The same thing happened prehistorically in Old French, yielding ''fis'' "I did", ''fist'' "he did" (< *feist < Latin {{lang|la|fēcit}}).