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Competing analyses of the Vulgar Latin vowel system

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 June 2016

Douglas C. Walker*
Affiliation:
University of Ottawa

Extract

The ways in which the vowel system of Vulgar Latin (VL) differs from that of Classical Latin (CL) have been well documented. These differences arise from historical innovations including:

  • (1) the monophthongization of the diphthongs [oj] œ and [aj] œ to [ē] and respectively,

  • (2) the lowering of the short vowels to respectively, and the consequent introduction of a new phonemic degree of vowel height for the front unrounded and back rounded vowels,

  • (3) the neutralization of the phonemic CL length differences, all stressed vowels now being long whatever the length of their CL source, and all unstressed vowels being short, and

  • (4) the introduction of phonemic stress, since the position of stress is no longer synchronically predictable because of the neutralization of vowel length mentioned in (3).

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Linguistic Association 1975

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