THE APOCOPE OF SANTO IN SPANISH AND PORTUGUESE

Abstract

In four of the Romance languages—French, Catalan, Provençal and Rumanian—, Latin sanctu- before the name of a male saint exhibits straightforward phonological and morphological development, and does not reveal any special proclitic forms. French Saint, Rumanian Sânt and Provençal Saint, Sanh or Sanch present yod-development, while Catalan Sant has characteristically resisted this phenomenon. It should be noted, in view of what is to follow, that the final -t of the French and Provençal Saint, and of the Catalan Sant is uttered only when the succeeding saint's name begins with a vowel or h mute (Saint Antoine; Sant Ignasi).

BSS Subject Index:

• PORTUGAL — PORTUGUESE LANGUAGE & ITS HISTORY
• SPAIN — LANGUAGES — SPANISH LANGUAGE & ITS HISTORY — GENERAL

Notes

¹The spelling San Feliu (or Feliú) de Guíxols is a blatant Castilianism.

²The elision of final -a occurs before a vowel in the feminine (Sant' Agata, Sant' Uliva).

³See W. von Wartburg, Raccolta di testi antichi italiani (Berne 1946), 83, 85, 87, 94–98.

⁴For reference to such forms as Santiago and San Telmo, see below.

¹ Glosario sobre Juan Ruiz (Madrid 1929), 564.

² Don Sancho, Castigos e documentos, 89B (BAE) “santo Cricolo”; Beneficiado de Úbeda, Vida de San Ildefonso, 323A (BAE) “era de Santo Jer … pariente e amigo”; Juan Ruiz, Libro de buen amor, G, 1240A “Santo Anton”; Enxemplos, 454B (BAE) “ santo Ambrosio”; ibid., 473B “santo Arsemio”; ibid., 528B “sancto Anton”; Con solaciones de la vida humana, 563B (BAE) “santo Agostin”.

¹These include seven cases in Juan de Padilla, Doze Triumphos; also Archpriest of Talavera, Corbacho, II, 9, “San Agustín”; Juan del Encina, Obras (Madrid 1893), p. 87 “San Antruejo” (1505 ms only); Fray García Eugui, Crónica general de España (in Anales de la Universidad de Chile, 1907–08), 122,2 “San Andres”; ibid., 122, 439 “San Isidoro”; ibid., 122, 457 “San Isidoro”.

² Jorge Manrique:, Coplas, 1704 “Santo Yepes”; ibid., 1708 “Santo Luque”; González de Clavijo, Embassy to Tamerlane, C, Folio 36V “Santo Mena”; F. Pérez Guzmán, 653B (BAE) “Santo Pedro Apostol, a su fija santa”; Juan de Padilla, op. cit., 416B (BAE) “Santo Matia”.

³The remainder are; Juan de Padilla, op. cit., 373A (BAE) “Santo Adrian”; González de Clavijo, op. cit., C, Folio 93V “Santo Inançio” (but A, Folio 35c “Sant Inaçio”); Cardinal Cisneros, Cartas a Diego López de Ayala (Madrid 1867), 242, 9 “santo Agustín”; Archpriest of Talavera, Vida de San Isidoro, ch. I “sancto Ermenegildo”; ibid., ch. I “sancto Isidoro”.

⁴See F. Hanssen, Gramática histórica de la lengua castellana (Buenos Aires 1945), § 153.

⁵ Santa Teresa de Jesús, Obras (Burgos 1918), V, 182, 23 “santo Matia”; ibid., V, 189, 19 “santo Matia”; Galíndez de Carvajal, Adiciones genealógicas in Codoin, XVIII (1851), 430, 27 “santo Mathias”. Furthermore, the 1525 translation of the Bishop of Tuy's Latin biography of St Martin of León has Santo Martino throughout, as has A. Viñayo González, in a recent article, Un leonés del siglo XII (in Archivos leoneses, XXV (1959) 87–159), although he is orthodox in three earlier studies (San Martín de León y su apologética antijudía (1948); San Martín de León y la eucaristia (1956); San Martin de León, el primer español que cita a Pedro Lombardo (1954). San(c)to before a vowel; Juan de Ávila, Cartas, 69, VI “sancto Augustin”; ibid., 86, IX “sancto Augustin”; Gil Vicente, Obras (Lisbon, 1942–4) 6, 184, 13 “Santo Agostin” (writing in Spanish). H. Keniston in The Syntax of Castilian Prose (Chicago 1937), 304, considers that the “names of San Agustín and San Mateo seem to have resisted apocopation”. Yet, even in these instances, apocope took place more often than not, particularly in the former case.

¹There are two cases of santo in Santa Teresa (see p. 80, N. 5) and two of sant used before Andres (ed. cit., V, 166, 24 and V, 167, 5).

² Diego is derived from Didacus, the Latin nickname for Jacobus.

³Elmo< *Ermo< *Éramo< Erásmu-.

¹D. J. Gifford and F. W. Hodcroft, Textos lingüísticos del medioevo español (Oxford 1959). 94.

² e.g., John Rylands Library; Latin ms 89, Folio 3b, 21 “Sancti thome”.

³Enxemplos, 522B (BAE) “sancto Tome de Conturbei”

¹See L. López Santos, Influjo de la vida cristiana en los nombres de pueblos españoles (Leon, 1952); J. M. Piel, Os nomes dos santos tradicionais hispânicos na toponimia peninsular (Coimbra, 1950); P. Cunha Serra, Da hagionimia e da hagiotoponímia portuguesa (RPF, VIII (1957). 39–59).

²The word Sancto is missing from the BN codex.

¹See J. Huber, Altportugiesisches Elementarbuch (Heidelberg 1933), 158b.

² ibid., 244A, a, 2. Huber suggests that sanctu- passed via *sant to sam (são), “nach Schwund des auslautenden Dentals”.

¹See Gil Vicente, Obras (ed. cit.), 1, 305;