The Posttonic Penult in Portuguese

Author(s): Edwin B. Williams

Source: Hispanic Review, Vol. 2, No. 2 (Apr., 1934), pp. 153-155
Published by: University of Pennsylvania Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/470207
Accessed: 02-04-2017 05:15 UTC

REFERENCES
Linked references are available on JSTOR for this article:
http://www.jstor.org/stable/470207?seq=1&cid=pdf-reference#references_tab_contents
You may need to log in to JSTOR to access the linked references.

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted
digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about
JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at
http://about.jstor.org/terms

University of Pennsylvania Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to
Hispanic Review

This content downloaded from 140.206.154.236 on Sun, 02 Apr 2017 05:15:46 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
 VARIA
THE POSTTONIC PENULT IN PORTUGUESE

THE POSTTONIC penult is supposed to have fallen in V

when standing between certain pairs of consonants:1 viride
Sp. verde; alterum > Port. outro and Sp. otro; ocillum
and Sp. ojo; positum > Port. posto and Sp. puesto; domin
dono and Sp. dueiFo; lep'rem > Port. lebre and Sp. liebre;
> Port. and Sp. frio; digitum > Port. and Sp. dedo.
The i of frigidum and the i of digitum do not stand between
usual pairs of consonants but there is evidence that they fell in
We are concerned here chiefly with words in which these
sonants do not appear, that is, words which had preserved th
penults in Vulgar Latin.
All posttonic penults, which had remained in Vulgar Lati
also in Portuguese, except e (C1.L. 6 & &), preceded by 1,
deblta > divida; *dubitam > d~vida; fraxinum > freixeo > freixo;
rettnam > ridea; decimum > dizimo; spatllam > espddua; -aticum
>-ddego.
All the words in the above list lost their penults in Spanish: deuda, duda,
fresno, rienda, diezmo, espalda, -azgo.
Freixeo became freixo through absorption of the e of the penult by ES].
It is difficult to determine whether the following posttonic penults fell
in the Vulgar Latin of the Spanish territory or in Spanish; they remained
in Portuguese: tabillam > Port. tdbua and Sp. tabla; nebiilam > Port.
nevoa and Sp. niebla; -ibilem > Port. -ivel and Sp. -ible; popiilunm
> Port. povoo and later povo, and Sp. pueblo; capitiilum > Port. cabidoo
and later cabido, and Sp. cabildo.
Words in -ivel (and -dvel) have become paroxytones because of the
dropping of final e after I at a comparatively early date, while povo and cabido
have become paroxytones through syneresis after the fall of intervocalic 1.
If the posttonic penult was a, it did not fall in Portuguese or Spanish:
stomdchum > Port. est6mago and Sp. estomago; anitem > Port. dade
(old) and adem, and Sp. dnade; *-aritis (for -averdtis, 2d pl. pluperf.
ind.) > -arades > Port. -dreis and Sp. -arais.
In some cases, a as a penult disappeared in Portuguese, but it was through
assimilation and syneresis, and not because of syncope, e.g., adem above, and
pelagum > peago > peego > pego.
If the posttonic penult was e (C1.L. g & 1), preceded by 1, m, n, or r, it
fell: aliquod >' algo; *pul~cam (for pulicem) > pulga; limltes > lindes;
1 Cf. Adolf Zauner, Romanische Sprachwissenschaft, Berlin, 1914, Vol. 1,
6, 5.
2 Cf. Grandgent, Latin Vulgar, Madrid, 1928, ? 238.
153

This content downloaded from 140.206.154.236 on Sun, 02 Apr 2017 05:15:46 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
 154 HISPANIC REVIEW

animam > alma; manicamr > man

-ar'tis (for -averitis, 2d pl. fut. perf
The comparative lateness of this chan
[k] in aliquod and *pulicanm, and t in
taken place in the intervocalic position
The voicing of t in -aritis gave rise t
the posttonic penult regularly fell in V
If the vowel was preceded by m bu
fall: femlnam > femea; geminum > g
The change from homies to homens
not by syncope.
The posttonic penult also fell in asno (from asinum) and in the
numerals from onze to seze (old).
It is probable that the disappearance of the penult in these numerals
began in tred-cim and sedecim through syneresis after the fall of intervocalic
d, and that onze, doze, catorze and quinze changed by analogy with treze and
seze. The Spanish forms may also have contributed to the change, as the
words are of common use in commerce.

A study of the intertonic vowel in Portuguese reveals that it fa

under similar conditions, but what is more important, that it does not
fall nearly so commonly as in Spanish, French and Italian.
The comparative absence of syncope which we have discovered i
Portuguese, along with the failure of e and o to diphthongize, would see
to indicate that in its formative period Portuguese was spoken with les
stress accent than most other Romance languages. Until new knowledg
is acquired about the languages which the Romans encountered in their
colonization of western Europe, we must content ourselves with h
potheses in attempting to account for this apparent variation of stress
accent. It is, therefore, simply as a hypothesis that the following expl
nation is offered.3
It is believed that Classical Latin always had a stress accent, and
that a pitch accent, which never affected popular speech, was introduced
toward the middle of the second century B.C. among the highly educated
classes by Greek teachers, pronouncing Latin in their own fashion.4 Five
or six centuries later the stress accent of popular speech was greatly in-
tensified in the mouths of invading Goths, who accented Latin with the
greater stress accent characteristic of their own language. One of the
results of this intensified stress accent was the syncope of the posttonic
penult between certain consonants,5 which took place in Vulgar Latin.
Additional Germanic invasions (Franks, Burgundians, Lombards, etc.)
brought about further intensification of stress accent, and with the rise
3 For a similar explanation of similar characteristics in Neapolitan and
other Italian dialects, see H. H. Vaughan, The Dialects of Central Italy, Phila-
delphia, 1915, pp. 11-14.
4 Cf. R. G. Kent, The Sounds of Latin, Baltimore, 1932, ? 66, 1.
5 Cf. Adolf Zauner, loc. cit.

This content downloaded from 140.206.154.236 on Sun, 02 Apr 2017 05:15:46 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
 VARIA 155

of the Romance la
general phenomenon
occurred in Vulgar Latin. But these additional Germanic invasions did
not reach the country that was to be Portugal. Aside from Visigoths
and Suevi no Germanic tribes ever settled there, and Visigoths and Suevi
left but slight traces of their stay. The linguistic result was that there
was less stress accent than in other Romance territory and accordingly,
less syncope.6
EDWIN B. WILLIAMS
University of Pennsylvania

NOTE ON A SONNET OF RIOJA'S

IN Barrera's edition of Rioja 1 there is a sonnet that calls fo

ment, because it is interpreted biographically by the editor, a
we can compare the original autograph (reproduced opposi
with the text offered in the same edition. The sonnet occurs
and begins:
" En mi prision, i en mi profunda pena ... "
Barrera adduces Rioja's imprisonment partly from this a
sonnets.2 In each case the imprisonment is metaphorical, an
prison. At least it is difficult to interpret this poem as ref
literal prison, though a literal one might have suggested it.
" solo el llanto me haze compaiiia"
This line has more force if we take it as meaning that his tea
the consolation that he formerly derived from society, rathe
it is physically impossible for him to enjoy society because he
prisoner.
"i el orrendo metal que noche i dia
en torno al pie molestamente suena,"
must be taken as purely metaphorical, the fetters of Love.
"No vine a este rigor por culpa agena,
yo deg6 el ocio i paz en que vivia"
The poet was himself responsible for his plight; Clori or Fili did not
lure him on, but he acted with full free-will.
6 There are words in Portuguese in which syncope does not appear but
which have every other mark of popular development, whereas such words in
Italian are the result of conscious effort in cultivated speech to restore the
vowel that had been dropped at an earlier date. Cf. Grandgent, From Latin
to Italian, Cambridge, 1927, ? 64.
1 Poesias de D. Franocisco de Rioja, corregidas, etc., por D. Cayetano
Alberto de la Barrera. Sociedad de Bibli6filos Espafioles. Madrid. 1867.
2 Pages 47-8. The other sonnets are:
"Rompo con lisa frente las prisiones .. . " (p. 257).
"Que secretos no vistos, en mis males . . . " (p. 254).

This content downloaded from 140.206.154.236 on Sun, 02 Apr 2017 05:15:46 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms