User:Melroch/Vulgar Latin

I began a phonology, but it seems my sources were too contradictory, and old, so that they didn't distinguish sufficiently between phonological, morphological and analogical changes, or at least had a different idea about them from modern sources. Anyway my first attempt at anything tends to get messy! ☺

Vowels

Old version

Stressed vowels

0)	Latin	ī	ĭ	ē	ĕ	ā	ă	ŏ	ō	ŭ	ū
1)	Early V.L.	i	ɪ	e	ɛ	a		ɔ	o	ʊ	u
2)	Sard/African V.L.	i		e		a		o		u
3)	Sicilian V.L.	i			e	a		o	u
4)	Corsican V.L.	i	ɛ	e	ɛ	a		ɔ	o	ɔ	u
5)	Western V.L.	i	e		ɛ	a		ɔ	o		u
6)	Eastern V.L.	i	e		ɛ	a		ɔ	o	u

New Version

Stressed vowels

		0)	Latin	ī	ĭ	ē	ĕ	ā	ă	ŏ	ō	ŭ	ū
		1)	Sard/African V.L.	i		e		a		o		u
		2)	Corsican V.L.	i	ɛ	e	ɛ	a		ɔ	o	ɔ	u
		3)	Early V.L.	i	ɪ	e	ɛ	a		ɔ	o	ʊ	u
		4)	Sicilian V.L.	i			e	a		o	u
		5)	Western V.L.	i	e		ɛ	a		ɔ	o		u
		6)	Eastern V.L.	i	e		ɛ	a		ɔ	o	u

Comments

All attested Romance vowel systems presuppose an early Vulgar Latin (1) system where the length distinction of the Latin (0) were replaced by distinctions of quality, or by a distinction of tenseness. The exception is the Sard-African system (2) where the length distinction was simply lost.

All of (2, 3, 5, 6) can be derived from (1), although in the case of (2) it is more reasonable to assume that it derives directly from (0) through loss of the length distinction. In the case of (4) it is most likely that it derives from a system parallel to (1) where ĭ had merged with ĕ and ŭ had merged with ŏ before the loss of the length distinction.

References

• ^  "Afrae aures de correptione vocalium vel productione non iudicant". Augustine De doctrina christiana 4.24
• ^  My only reference for such a system in Corsican, which seems to be contradicted by other sources, is a somewhat unclear passage in

  Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm. Einführung in das Studium der romanischen Sprachwissenschaft. Heidelberg: C. Winter, 1920.