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- Title
On Syncope, Metathesis, and the Development of/nVr/ from Latin to Old Spanish.
- Authors
WIREBACK, KENNETH J.
- Abstract
In this article I provide an explanation for Malkiel's (1946: 314) observation that / rn/, /nr/, and /rr/ variants of Latin /nVr/ outnumbered /ndr/ in the earliest Old Spanish texts (terre, terne, tenrre 'I will have'), and an explanation of why metathesis appears to have been as predominant as Iml and /rr/. First, I posit intermediate, pre-syncope [n3r] variants of Latin /nVr/, whose reduced vowel and tap [r] increased the probability of perceptual metathesis from [nƏJ] to /rn/. Second, the [nƏJ] variants gave metathesis a head start over [rr] and [ndr], since these latter two variants could not surface until syncope produced [nr]. Finally, the occurrence of many /nVr/ sequences in the newly created future/conditional stems of the verbs VENIRE, TENERE, PONERE, meant that the reductive effects of grammaticalization (morphologization) exacerbated the listeners' difficulty in perceiving the correct order between [n] and [J], thereby increasing further the probability of perceptual metathesis.
- Subjects
SPANISH language -- To 1500; MEDIEVAL &; modern Latin language; METATHESIS (Linguistics); GRAMMATICALIZATION; HISTORICAL linguistics; PHONETICS; MALKIEL, Yakov
- Publication
Bulletin of Hispanic Studies (1475-3839), 2014, Vol 91, Issue 6, p559
- ISSN
1475-3839
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.3828/bhs.2014.35