Re: [tied] Re: Lusitanians

I think the French development of "l" and nasals is independent from that of
Portuguese.
Firstly, the development is different, and secondly there are the Spanish
dialects between French and Portuguese where these phenomena have not
occurred.
The velarisation of French "l" occurred exclusively before another
consonant, and it seems that this tendency to velar pronunciation was
present in Latin. Modern French forms such as "oiseau", "chapeau",
"chateau", "beau" are late medieval back-formations for earlier "oisel" etc.
I think "du" is an isolated phenomenon.
Likewise, nasalisation in French only occurs when the nasal closes the
syllable, i.e. bon/bonne.
These developments in French however do indicate that, unlike Portuguese,
Spanish and Italian, final "o","u","i","e" were dropped early, while "a" was
maintained as "e". So the developments in French would be:
bellum > bel (later > beau, but still "un bel homme")
bellos > bels > beaux
bella > belle
bellas > belles
caballum > cabal > cheval
caballos > cabals > chevaux
avicellum > oisel (later > oiseau)
avicellos > oisels > oiseaux
bonum > bon > bon (nasal)
bona > bone > bonne (no nasal)



Cheers
Dennis

----- Original Message -----
From: Marc Verhaegen <marc.verhaegen@...>
To: <cybalist@egroups.com>
Sent: Wednesday, 06 September, 2000 5:20 AM
Subject: Re: [tied] Re: Lusitanians


>
>
>
> >> The drop of the intervocalic L in portuguese, I think, is very probably
> >> influenced by the substratum. Teyssier, in his classical book "História
> da
> >> língua portuguesa" (Histoire de la langue portugaise), tells that the
> drop
> >> of the L happened probably at the end of the 10th century; his
hypothesis
> >> is that, first, there was a velar pronunciation of the intervocalic L,
> like
> >> the L at the end of a syllable in the modern European Portuguese. The
> drop
> >> of the intervocalic N is a different phenomenon, because it involves
> >> nasalization, which is very complicated.
> >> The drop of the L and N are exclusively of the galician-portuguese,
> >> according to Teyssier. But I think the drop of the N didn't occur in
the
> >> galician language; am I right? I expect I have helped. Bruno
>
>
> I believe somewhat comparable phenomena are also seen in French: "du"
> instead of "de le" (or "del" or"de lo"?), "chevaux" instead of "chevals"
(L
> intervocalic then?); and nasalisation. Related substratum? Or influenced
by
> stronger stress?
>
> Marc
>
>
>
>
>