LIN376H5 Chapter Notes - Chapter 2: Wet Season, Etymology, Altera
Document Summary
Chapter 2 early changes in syllable structure and consonants part 2. The protected positions, those where romance consonants tend to resist change are word- initial and postconsonantal. Word-initially, /b/ and /w/ remain distinct in italian and french, for example: In other protected position, postconsonantal, italian and french keep /b/ and /w/ distinct, whereas in spanish, they merge. In the unprotected intervocalic position, all three languages merge /b/ with /w/ In spanish, the ultimate result of the merger is one phoneme with two allophones, [b] at the beginning of a breath group or post-nasally, and [ ] everywhere else, for example: Thus, within each language, /b/ and /w/, give identical results. Italian and french have /v/ (its value in classical times was /w/) Spanish tends to favor spellings reminiscent of the latin etymon, but in reality, letters and are pronounced alike both, represent a single phoneme, with its allophones [b] and [ ]
