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Original Articles

On b and v in Latin and Romance

Pages 211-215 | Published online: 04 Dec 2015

  • Romance words containing an intervocalic -b- contrasting with intervocalic -v- are not of popular origin. See G. Rohlfs, Historische Grammatik der Italienischen Sprache, Vol. I (Bern, 1949), 348.
  • C. H. Grandgent, An Introduction to Vulgar Latin (Boston, 1907), 133.
  • Grandgent, op cit., 134–135.
  • E. Parodi, “Del Passagio di v- in b- e di certe perturbazioni delle leggi fonetiche nel latino volgare”, Romania, 27.177–240 (1898).
  • A. Terracini, “Di che cosa fanno la storia gli storici del linguaggio? Storia dei tipi benio e Nerba nel latino volgare”, AGI, XXVII (1935), 133–152, XXVIII (1936), 1–31,134–150.
  • For the discussion of the Southern Italian and Sicilian merger of b- and v-, see Rohlfs, op. cit., pp. 249 ff; for the merger in Sardinian see Max L. Wagner, Historische Lautlehre des Sardischen (Halle, 1941), pp. 95 ff., La lingua sarda (Bern, 1950), pp. 311 ff. The above b/v mergers become also evident from various maps of the AIS like la bocca (AIS, 104 la vena (AIS, 89), etc.
  • A. G. Haudricourt and A. G. Juilland, Essai pour une histoire structurale du phonetisme français (Paris, 1949), Ch. V; E. A. Llorach, Fonologia española (Madrid, 1950) 148–156; A. Martinet. “The Unvoicing of the Old Spanish Sibiliants”, Romance Philology, 5.123–56 (1951–2).
  • H. Tiktin, Rumānisches Elementarbuch (Heidelberg, 1905), pp. 54–56. Thus Rumanian has alba > albǎ, servire > serbire, but also veteranus > betrân.
  • Portuguese: voto > bodo; French: curvare > courber, Medieval Central Italian: vocem > boce, etc. See Rohlfs, op. cit., 283–284., E. B. Williams, From Latin to Portuguese (Philadelphia, 1938), 59; M. K. Pope, From Latin to Modern French, (Manchester, 1934), 92, also Parodi, op. cit., passim.
  • For a discussion of the sound shift, see A. Martinet “Celtic Lenition and Western Romance Consonants”, Language, 28.192–217 (1952); A. G. Juilland and A. G. Haudricourt, op. cit., Ch. IV.
  • See footnote 9.
  • C. D. Buck, A Grammar of Osean and Umbrian, 2nd edition (Boston, 1928), 67, 94.
  • See A. Martinet, “Some Problems of Italic Consonantism,” Word. 6.26–41 (1950).
  • See, for instance, Grandgent, op. cit. 134. That the -b-/-v- confusion did not occur until the First Century A.D. proves nothing with regard to the pronunciation of b. Such a confusion could not occur until y. became a consonantal phoneme.
  • Wagner, Historische Lautlehre, 78 ff. Thus dialects like those of Orani or Fonni have bið ere, creðere. In others like Campidanese the Latin intervocalic voiced stops have fallen, undoubtedly after passing through the continuant stage: videre > * vidðere > viri, striga > * striða > stria, etc.
  • See Martinet, op cit., 36–37.
  • For a discussion of Southern Italian and Sicilian consonantism, see Rohlfs, op. cit., 246 ff. For special discussions of specific dialects, see, H. Lausberg, Die Mundart Südlukaniens (Halle, 1939), or L. A. Ondis, Phonology of the dientan Dialect (New York, 1932). The following examples were taken from the last-mentioned study: bibere > [βeβe], vacuus > [βako] credo > [krero], dare > [rare], gallus > [𝛄аḍḍο], augustus > [aγosto], etc. The forms [krero] and [rare] show a development d &gt δ > r.
  • See Rohlfs, op. cit., 359 ff., 351 ff., 355 ff. also numerous maps of AIS like i piedi (AIS 113), which shows a reflex t for Latin d in the following Southern Italian and Sicilian points: 612, 646, 648, 707, 710, 717, 719, 736, 737, 729, 738, 749, 819.
  • Michel Lejeune, Traité de phonétique grecque (Paris, 1947), 45 ff. The spirantization of the voiced stops is part of a weakening of articulation which also transformed the unvoiced aspirate stops into unvoiced continuants.
  • Albert Thumb, Handbuch der Griechischen Dialekte, 2nd edition, (Heidelberg, 1937) 84–87, 90.
  • In some areas also intervocalic -g- was probably still continuant. For in the Terra d'Otranto we find some areas which interpreted Latin initial g as k but Latin intervocalic -g- as a voiced continuant: gallo > caḍḍu, but augustus > aγust (See Rohlfs, op. cit., 213 and 356).

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