7 The evolution of Latin stress into Romance with special consideration of French
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Haike Jacobs
Abstract
This chapter describes the major changes that took place in the evolution from Latin stress to the modern Romance languages. Unstressed vowel deletion, which was systematic in the evolution of French, first as syncope and later as apocope, is argued to be the continuous effect of a constraint already operative in Latin: the avoidance of vocalic substance in the weak part of a foot. The constraint first targeted the uneven trochee for syncope and later on in the evolution of French, the syllabic trochee for apocope. The chapter provides an OT analysis of the way in which word-internal and word-final unstressed vowel deletion ultimately led to systematic word-final stress in Old French and shows how, once the last proparoxytonic words had been adapted in three different ways, the change from word-final to phrase-final stress was completed.
Abstract
This chapter describes the major changes that took place in the evolution from Latin stress to the modern Romance languages. Unstressed vowel deletion, which was systematic in the evolution of French, first as syncope and later as apocope, is argued to be the continuous effect of a constraint already operative in Latin: the avoidance of vocalic substance in the weak part of a foot. The constraint first targeted the uneven trochee for syncope and later on in the evolution of French, the syllabic trochee for apocope. The chapter provides an OT analysis of the way in which word-internal and word-final unstressed vowel deletion ultimately led to systematic word-final stress in Old French and shows how, once the last proparoxytonic words had been adapted in three different ways, the change from word-final to phrase-final stress was completed.
Chapters in this book
- Frontmatter I
- Manuals of Romance Linguistics V
- Acknowledgments VII
- Table of contents IX
- List of abbreviations XIII
- Romance phonetics and phonology: an introduction 1
-
I. Key topics in Romance phonology
- 1 Length and weight in Romance 31
- 2 Syllable structure and (re)syllabification 89
- 3 Processes affecting vowels 127
- 4 From vowel weakening in Romance to French schwa 150
- 5 Palatalization in Romance 173
- 6 Nasals and nasalization 215
- 7 The evolution of Latin stress into Romance with special consideration of French 242
- 8 Comparing and deconstructing speech rhythm across Romance languages 264
- 9 Intonation 299
- 10 Corpus phonology 319
- 11 Sociophonetics 342
- 12 First language acquisition of Romance phonology 375
- 13 Bilingual phonological acquisition 407
- 14 Second and third language acquisition of Romance phonology 435
- 15 The phonology of Romance contact varieties 462
- 16 Loanword phonology in Romance 503
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II. Phonetics and phonology of Romance languages
- 17 Romanian 531
- 18 Italian 559
- 19 Sardinian 597
- 20 Rhaeto-Romance: Friulian, Ladin, and Romansh 628
- 21 French 669
- 22 Occitan 709
- 23 Catalan 743
- 24 Spanish 779
- 25 Judeo-Spanish 808
- 26 Portuguese 839
- 27 Galician 882
- 28 Romance-lexifier creoles 929
- List of contributors 955
- Index 957
Chapters in this book
- Frontmatter I
- Manuals of Romance Linguistics V
- Acknowledgments VII
- Table of contents IX
- List of abbreviations XIII
- Romance phonetics and phonology: an introduction 1
-
I. Key topics in Romance phonology
- 1 Length and weight in Romance 31
- 2 Syllable structure and (re)syllabification 89
- 3 Processes affecting vowels 127
- 4 From vowel weakening in Romance to French schwa 150
- 5 Palatalization in Romance 173
- 6 Nasals and nasalization 215
- 7 The evolution of Latin stress into Romance with special consideration of French 242
- 8 Comparing and deconstructing speech rhythm across Romance languages 264
- 9 Intonation 299
- 10 Corpus phonology 319
- 11 Sociophonetics 342
- 12 First language acquisition of Romance phonology 375
- 13 Bilingual phonological acquisition 407
- 14 Second and third language acquisition of Romance phonology 435
- 15 The phonology of Romance contact varieties 462
- 16 Loanword phonology in Romance 503
-
II. Phonetics and phonology of Romance languages
- 17 Romanian 531
- 18 Italian 559
- 19 Sardinian 597
- 20 Rhaeto-Romance: Friulian, Ladin, and Romansh 628
- 21 French 669
- 22 Occitan 709
- 23 Catalan 743
- 24 Spanish 779
- 25 Judeo-Spanish 808
- 26 Portuguese 839
- 27 Galician 882
- 28 Romance-lexifier creoles 929
- List of contributors 955
- Index 957
