Romanian Vowel Nasalization and the Palatal Nasal / ɲ

Romanian Vowel Nasalization and the Palatal Nasal / ɲ/Author(s): Rodney SampsonSource: The Slavonic and East European Review, Vol. 73, No. 4 (Oct., 1995), pp. 601-612Published by: the Modern Humanities Research Association and University College London, School ofSlavonic and East European StudiesStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4211932 .

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AND EAST EUROPEAN

REVIEW

Volume 73, Number 4-October I995

Romanian Vowel Nasalization

and the Palatal Nasal /p/

RODNEY SAMPSON

IN the history of the Romance languages, nasalization has exercised a considerable influence on patterns of vowel evolution. The most familiar case of course is provided by French where nasalization has caused notable changes in vowel height and has also given rise to nasal vowel phonemes, as in VINU(M) > Old French [vin] > Mod. French [vE] vin 'wine'. However, vowel nasalization has also been significant in a number of other Romance varieties, not least in Romanian. Its effect here has not been to create nasal vowel phonemes, as happened in French, but it has caused major quality changes in vowels through systematic raising.1 As a result, in modern Daco-Romanian and in most other varieties of Romanian all words of native Latin origin show just the high vowels /i l u/ appearing in contexts where nasalization

Rodney Sampson is Senior Lecturer in Romance Philology in the Department of French, University of Bristol.

I The raising effect of nasalization on Romanian vowels stands in marked contrast to the directly opposite lowering effect which is found in French; see the entirely typical case of vin cited above. Such different responses to nasalization prove rather problematic for general phonologists seeking to identify universal characteristics in nasal vowel patterning and evolution; for example, M. Chen, 'Metarules and Universal Constraints in Phonological Theory', Project in Linguistic Analysis, 13, 1973, pp. MC I-MC56, and M. Ruhlen, 'Nasal vowels' in Universals of Human Language. 2. Phonology, ed. J. Greenberg, Stanford, I978, pp. 203-4I. Within the field of Romance, the Romanian data also provide a salutary corrective to the (all too often cited) claim based solely on the facts of French that nasal vowels always lower; see the notorious 'des qu'une voyelle se nasalise, elle tend aussitot a s'ouvrir' of G. Straka, 'Remarques sur les voyelles nasales, leur origine et leur evolution en franSais', Revue de linguistique romane, 19, 1955, pp. 245-74 (248).



602 RODNEY SAMPSON

operated. The following illustrate the divergent evolution of stressed vowels which have undergone nasalization.2

Late Latin nasalized vowel non-nasalized vowel stressed vowel

(E >) e CENA > cina'dinner' CERA > ceara'wax' v v v1

(E >) E TEMPUS > timp 'time' PERDO > pierd'I lose' (A >) a QUANDO > cz'nd'when' PARTE(M) > parte'part' (O >) o PONTE(M) > punte 'bridge' PORTA > poartd 'gate' (O >) o PONIT > pune 'he puts' SOLE(M) > soare 'sun'

If the broad effect of nasalization on the evolution of Romanian vowels is fairly clear, certain aspects of the actual process of nasalization are rather less so. In particular, some uncertainty continues to surround the precise details of the contexts in which vowel nasalization operated in the early stages of the language. We may refer to such contexts for convenience as 'nasalizing contexts'. The following types of nasalizing context have been identified for early Romanian:

example

(I) NC CAMPU(M) > cfmp'field' CANTO > czint 'I sing' SANGUE(N) > szinge 'blood'

(2) [n] V LANA > lzna'wool' BENE > bine'well' BONU(M) > bun'good' (m.sg.)

(3) N N NOME(N) > nume'name' NONNU(M) > nun 'man who gives

away the bride at a wedding'

[where 'N' = any nasal consonant, 'C' = any oral consonant, 'V' = any vowel.]

Contexts (i) and (2) have long been recognized and figure in the standard manuals covering the history of the language.3 Context (3)

2 In the present study we focus almost exclusively on vowel nasalization in stressed syllables where its effect is most conspicuous. The situation with vowels in unstressed syllables is very similar with only minor variations which do not affect the points being explored here. For a closer look at vowel nasalization in unstressed syllables, see my earlier study, R. Sampson, 'Vowel Nasalisation and its Implementation in Romanian', Neuphilo- logische Mitteilungen, go, I 989, pp. I 85-93.

3 See 0. Nandris, Phonetique historique du roumain, Paris, I963 (hereafter Phonetique), pp. 8 and 248; E. Vasiliu, Fonologia istoricd a dialectelor dacoromane, Bucharest, I968 (hereafter Fonologia), p. 72; M. Sala, Contributions -a la phonitique historique du roumain, Paris, 1976 (hereafter Contributions), p. 233; A. Rosetti, Istoria limbii romdne, 2nd edn, Bucharest, I978 (hereafter Istoria), pp. 365-66.



VOWEL NASALIZATION 603

was first identified by Andrei Avram4 and its interest lies in the fact that vowel nasalization occurred here irrespective of the nature of the following nasal consonant and the segment which came after it. It therefore stands apart from context (i), which demands that the conditioning nasal consonant be followed by an oral consonant; and it also stands apart from context (2), which applies only when the stressed vowel is specifically followed by the simplex coronal nasal [n] in intervocalic position. Neither of these two nasalizing contexts would therefore have been satisfied by vowels preceding a simplex [m] followed by a vowel, or preceding a nasal consonant followed by another nasal consonant, and consequently such vowels would not have undergone nasalization. This is apparent from the cases cited below:

RAMU(M) > ram (not *rim) 'branch' COMA > coama (not *cumma) 'mane'

FLAMMA > (Aromanian) fmam (not *flima) 5 'flame' SOMNU(M) > somn (not *sumn) 'sleep' ANNU(M) > an (not *z^n) 'year'

However, when a stressed vowel was also preceded by a nasal consonant in such a non-nasalizing context, the double presence of nasality evidently had the cumulative effect of causing the vowel to undergo full nasalization, hence NOMEN > nume as against COMA > coama.

The problem of the palatal nasal A further type of nasalizing context remains to be considered. This arose in forms where a vowel preceded a sequence which was to become the palatal nasal /ji/. In most varieties of Romance, the palatal nasal arose from two sources: /n + j / and the sequence -GN-. In Romanian however, the latter regularly developed to /mn/ and does not act as a nasalizing context, for instance, LIGNU(M) > lemn 'wood'. Yet the sequence /n + j / did give a palatal nasal which has been preserved until today in all varieties of Romanian used outside Romania, as well as in dialects of the Banat. Elsewhere in Daco-Romanian it evidently remained until approximately the fifteenth century, when it passed to

In his article 'Sur le Traitement roumain des voyelles latines accentuees precedees et suivies de consonnes nasales', Bulletin de la Societe Roumaine de Linguistique Romane, 6, I969, pp. 7-I7.

5 There appears to be no direct reflex of this item in standard Romanian, where 'flame' is covered byflacdra < *FLACCULA, an adapted form of FACULA 'torch, fire-brand'. The Latin FLAMMA is cited as giving Romanian ftamd in the REW 3350, with the meaning 'dryness, drought', but no such item appears in the DEX. The same form jfamd with the meaning 'flame' does figure in the DEX, but it is quite correctly identified as a loanword from French.



604 RODNEY SAMPSON

nasal [], still found in some dialects of north-western Romania (Tara Oa?ului, Tara Motilor), and finally denasalized to give oral U] as in CUNEU(M) > 'kuynu> 'kuj(u) > kuj cui 'wedge'.6

Now, as we have noted, the palatal nasal has generally acted as a nasalizing context causing the familiar effect of vowel raising. Thus:

VENIO > viu 'I come' CALCANEU(M) > cdlcai' 'heel' COTONEU(M) > gutui 'quince tree'

However, some exceptions are found, almost all of which contain the stressed vowel /o/. These include:

VULPONEU(M) > vulpoi 'male fox' LUPONEU(M) > lupoi 'male wolf' PURONEU(M) > puroi 'pus'

To these some linguists add a further case involving stressed /a/; namely,

BA(L)NEA > baie 'bath'

The fact that the palatal nasal functioned as a nasalizing context is clear but the circumstances which surrounded it raise two problems. Firstly, in view of the constraints operating on the other types of nasalizing context, how was it possible for a palatal nasal to cause vowel nasalization? The palatal nasal did not occur pre-consonantally, so it did not fit in with context (i) identified above. Similarly, it could not have fitted in with context (2) either. This is because the palatal nasal in early Romance was clearly a geminate consonant when it arose, and indeed it has remained as a geminate in all central and many southern varieties of Italian, including the standard language, up to this day, as in VINEA > St. Italian ['viDDa] vigna 'vineyard'. It would therefore be strange if a geminate palatal nasal could trigger vowel nasalization whereas all other nasal geminates failed to do so. Various arguments might be adduced to explain the situation here.

One possibility could be that the original geminate palatal nasal simplified rapidly to give a simplex palatal [ji], and this was then equated with the simplex coronal nasal [n]. If this were the case, the palatal nasal would take its place within nasalizing context (2). The problem with such an explanation, however, is that in other varieties of Romance where such a simplification of the palatal nasal has occurred, the resulting simplex palatal nasal usually remains a strong consonant

6 See I. Stan, 'Observatii asupra evolutiei ni > iin limba romana, Cercetdri de Lingvisticd, 4, I959, pp49-57.




alongside simplex [m], rather than becoming a weak nasal like simplex [n].7 Some reasons would therefore be necessary to explain why the palatal nasal in Romanian developed in such an exceptional way.

Another, and rather more radical, explanation is also conceivable. The raising of vowels before the palatal nasal might be attributed not to the nasality of this consonant, but to some other factor. In addition to its nasality, the palatal nasal is characterized by having a high tongue position during its articulation. Given this, the possibility exists that the key factor in raising non-high preceding vowels to a high tongue position was the assimilatory influence exerted by the high quality of the palatal nasal. Such a view finds some support from the history of other varieties of Romance, where palatal consonants have indeed caused raising in preceding vowels.8 However, it also runs, into some strong counter-arguments from the known historical facts of Romanian itself. In particular, the failure of any other palatal consonants to cause raising in Romanian stressed vowels is highly suggestive. This is clearly seen in the following examples:

MAIU(M) > mai 'May' ALLIU(M) > ai 'garlic' CASEU(M) > cal 'cheese' BRACCIU(M) > brat 'arm'

If palatality caused no raising in cases such as these, it would be difficult to justify any claim that the palatality of the nasal [ji] was capable of bringing about vowel raising.

Thus it is far from clear at first sight how to make sense of the way in which the palatal nasal operated in relation to the other known types of nasalizing context in early Romanian. Yet to view it as a special and exceptional type of nasalizing context, not directly related to the other types, would surely be unsatisfactory.

7 Portuguese provides a clear example in this context. Here, the simplex nasal [n] is weakened and finally deleted round about the tenth century, giving rise to vowel nasalization, as in MANU(M) > mdo 'hand'. But geminate [nn] and simplex / geminate [(m)m] showed no parallel tendency to weaken and fall. They emerged as [n] and [m] respectively, following the regular simplification of all types of geminate consonant: ANNU(M) > ano 'year'; RAMU(M) > ramo 'branch'; FLAMMA > chama 'flame'. Significantly, the palatal nasal behaves just like the other original geminate nasals. It simplified to give [ji] but showed no tendency to weaken any further and disappear; for example, BA(L)NEU(M) > banho 'bath'. The palatal nasal therefore stands apart from simplex [n] and ties in with the other types of nasal.

8 One example is provided by the phenomenon of 'anaphonesis' which affected Tuscan dialects and in particular the dialect of Florence, which was to form the basis of standard Italian. For instance, TINEA > tigna (rather than * tegna) 'ringworm'; CONSILIU(M) > consiglio 'advice'. However, it is notable that the raising influence of anaphonesis is somewhat restricted: it operates on high-mid vowels only, raising themn to become high vowels. In general, other cases of non-high vowel raising through the influence of palatal consonants are similarly limited in scope in Romance. The situation in Romanian, where all non-high vowels are systematically affected, is thus somewhat atypical.



6o6 RODNEY SAMPSON

The other problem relates to the anomalous developments which are found. How does it happen that CALCANEU(M), COTONEU(M), and so forth, show vowel nasalization whilst other comparable items, such as PURONEU(M), fail to do so?

We will briefly consider previous coverage of this question before proposing a possible solution.

Previous proposals There have been few serious examinations of the first problem, that is, the rationale behind the palatal nasal as a nasalizing context. Most early scholars typically started from the Classical Latin etyma and consequently failed to distinguish between [n] and [ji]. Thus, Den- susianu treats both [en] and [eji] under e + n, and likewise [on] and [oji] under o + n.9 In this way, the problem is not even raised.

In more recent times, the development of the palatal nasal from the sequence [n] + G] in early Romanian has been explicitly acknow- ledged, and the assumption has been that it caused vowel nasalization. Vasiliu accepts that the palatal nasal causes raising but only briefly addresses the other problem we have identified.10 In his influential work, Marius Sala sets the evolution of the palatal nasal into the wider context of another more general development, which he postulates for consonants in early Romanian.1" This is the creation of a systematic distinction between 'strong' and 'weak' consonants. In broad terms, the former arose from geminate consonants in Latin and the latter from simplex consonants. Thus, in ANNU(M) the geminate gave a 'strong' [n] and in CANE(M) the simplex nasal gave a 'weak' [n].12 Sala concludes that only a 'weak' [n] triggered vowel nasalization (cf. our context (2) above). However, noting the different fate of the stressed vowel of baie and c6lchi < BA(L)NEA, CALCANEU(M), he then goes on to suggest that the same circumstances applied in these forms as well. So, the idea is that at the time of vowel nasalization these forms were pronounced ['baja] and [kal'kanju], and the difference between the conditioning nasal consonants was decisive in giving the divergent outcome. Finally, we may notice that Sala assumes that nasalization was set in train before the creation of the palatal nasal [jp], which, he believes, developed from both the sequences [nj] and [nj]. We pick up this important chronological point later on.

9 0. Densusianu, Histoire de la langue roumaine. II. Le seizieme siecle, Paris, I 938, repr. in Opere II, Bucharest, 1975 (hereafter Histoire), pp. 396, 400. 10 Fonologia, p. 74. 1 Contributions, pp. 8 I-82. 12 For convenience, we use our own symbolization here. Sala uses a superscript macron to

mark 'strong' consonants and no special symbolization for the 'weak' counterparts.




Recently, a further proposal has been made by Andrei Avram.13 Building on Sala's view that 'strong' and 'weak' series of consonants evolved in early Romanian, he suggests that this contrast also arose with palatal nasals, giving a 'strong' [i] and a 'weak' Lr].14 The former derived from the sequence [nnj] and the latter from [nj]. Furthermore, Avram contends, just as it was the 'weak' type of coronal nasal [n] which triggered vowel nasalization (cf. context (2) above), so too it was precisely the 'weak' variety of palatal nasal Lu] which led to nasalization.

The discussion accorded to this question by Avram is long and detailed and shows much ingenuity. Nonetheless it appears flawed for three reasons. First, the existence of a 'strong'/'weak' contrast with palatal nasals is untenable. Such a contrast of strength between palatal sonorants of any sort is unknown in any form of Romance. Usually, palatal sonorants were systematically long when they first developed, [jiji] [kk], and as we have already noted, they have remained as such up to the present day in central and southern Italy. Against this general Romance background, it is not easy to understand why early Roman- ian should have been so exceptional. Significantly, there is no trace whatever of a 'strong'/'weak' contrast in any variety of modern Romanian. Surely if there are clear traces of such contrasts in non- palatal sonorants, such as PELLE(M) > piele 'skin', but MELE > miere 'honey' with [-1-] vs. [-r-], we would expect to find traces of the same contrast with the palatal nasal as well. Also, if the palatal nasal developed a strength/length contrast, we might expect that the palatal lateral would have done the same. Yet there is no indication at all that there was ever such a contrast with palatal laterals - the evolution is identical whether the starting-point in Classical Latin was a geminate or simplex lateral, as in ALLIU(M) > ai 'garlic' and TALIG > tai 'I cut'.

Secondly, the phonetic basis of the contrast between a 'strong' and 'weak' palatal nasal is far from clear. Length must surely have been the distinctive feature. As we have seen, however, Romance consistently excluded any length distinction in palatal sonorants.

Finally, the key item of evidence lies in the fate of the one word *BANNEA < BALNEA, which played a crucial role in Sala's account as well. It has to be said that a great deal of doubt surrounds the credentials of this word. Certainly, in all other varieties of Romance the word for 'bath' derives not from a feminine form created from the plural of the neuter noun BALNEUM, but instead from a masculinized form

13 A. Avram, Nazalitatea Xi rotacismul in limba romand, Bucharest, I 990 (hereafter Nazalitatea), PP. I154-79.

14 Again we use our own symbolization. Avram indicates the 'weak' palatal nasal by a subscript dot.



6o8 RODNEY SAMPSON

proceeding from the singular.15 The presence in early Slavonic of the form banja 'bath' (itself borrowed from Latin) surely points to the likely origins of Romanian baie, as various scholars have assumed.16 In our view, it was adopted into early Romanian as a loanword from Slavonic in the shape ['banja], and like all Slavonic loanwords it was not affected by the process of vowel nasalization, which presumably had ceased to be productive by the time of the first major influx of Slavonic lexicon into Romanian.17 If this is the case, then there is effectively no evidence to support the claim that contrastively 'strong' and 'weak' palatal nasals ever existed.

It will have been noticed that the proposals of Sala and Avram have in common the recognition of forms such as cdlchi as a special case of nasalizing context type (2). The key element is seen to be the presence of a 'weak' nasal element which is directly aligned with the 'weak' nasal [n] of LANA. As we have seen, there are difficulties with this concept, especially as presented by Andrei Avram. We will therefore advance an alternative interpretation; but before doing so a brief comment may be made on previous solutions to the other problem concerning the cases of non-nasalization.

The lack of vowel nasalization in forms like PURONEU(M) has not attracted enormous attention. For instance, Densusianu merely describes the preservation of /o/ as 'surprenant et il n'a pas encore ete eclairci'.18 One suggested explanation, however, originally offered by Pu?cariu, has received a fair degree of support. This was to see the action of 'expressive gemination' in the exceptional items. The effect of this was allegedly to modify items such as PURONEUM to *PURONNEUM, and thereby create a 'strong' nasal which did not trigger vowel nasalization.19 This idea is echoed by Nandris and en desespoir de cause by Avram.20 However, the plausibility of such an explanation must be considered with caution. The claim that expressive gemination operated in some words but not in others has an unmistakably ad hoc air to it, and no serious attempt is made to identify independent motivating factors. We may well ask what it was that

15 The neuter noun BALNEUM is ultimately a loan from the Greek fXakavELov and Romance reflexes of it are French bain, Italian bagno, Spanish bano, Portuguese banho, and so forth, all of which are masculine (see REW 9I6).

16 Compare with Istoria, p. 335. 17 A small group of much-discussed words, including smfntndi '(sour) cream' and jupfn 'master',

appear to show the effects of vowel nasalization although they may be borrowed from Slavonic; see especially G. Mihaila, 'Criteriile delimitarii imprumuturilor slave in limba romana', Studii si cercetari lingvistice, 22, 197 I, pp. 35 I-66, and Nazalitatea, pp. 29-33. In fact, whatever their exact origins, they were clearly adopted at an early stage of the history of Romanian and hence do not invalidate the claim that vowel nasalization had ceased to be productive when the main flow of Slavonic borrowings got under way. 18 Histoire, p. 400. 19 S. Puscariu, Limba romdnd. I Rostirea, Bucharest, 1959, pp. 6i and 341. 20 Phonetique, pp. 34-35 and Nazalitatea, p. I56.




made puroi 'pus' so affectively highly charged that it experienced expressive gemination whereas, for instance, the semantically related rlie 'itch, mange, scab' < ARANEA, despite its potential expressivity, was evidently left unaffected by gemination and hence underwent vowel nasalization.

A new proposal We assume that the palatal nasal does not represent a special and maverick nasalizing context in Romanian. Rather, it is likely to fit in directly with the other types of context which have brought about vowel nasalization, in particular context types (i) and (2) identified above. (Context type (3), it will be recalled, relies on cumulative nasalization triggered by the presence of both a following and a preceding nasal consonant, and consequently represents a quite separate type of nasalizing context from the rest.)

Contexts (i) and (2) both brought about vowel nasalization as a result of the weakening of a following conditioning nasal consonant. In context (i), it was a syllable-final nasal which weakened whereas in context (2) the weakening conditioning consonant was specifically the simplex coronal nasal [n] in intervocalic position. We may consider to what extent the palatal nasal fits in with these two context types.

Taking context (2) first, it is striking that although the palatal nasal certainly came to appear in intervocalic position like simplex [n] in the early stages of Romance, it was never articulatorily a weak consonant, as we have already noted. This important difference between the palatal nasal and simplex [n] argues against any attempt simply to associate the two consonant types and include them both within context (2). Before any such association could be accepted, a plausible explanation would be needed to answer the key question of why the palatal nasal was the only type of strong nasal to have undergone the major weakening which gave rise to vowel nasalization.

If the palatal nasal does not readily fit in with context (2), we can only conclude that it ties up with the other type of nasalizing context, context (i). That is to say that at the time when the stressed vowel of items like cdlcaii initially underwent nasalization, it must have satisfied the conditions of context (i). Now, for this to be possible an important assumption is necessary, namely that the palatal nasal phoneme had not yet developed, as Sala intimated albeit for slightly different reasons.21 We have to posit that at the outset of vowel nasalization, the structure of our example word was [kal'kapju], where the dot [.] indicates a syllable boundary. In this way, there was a crucial conditioning nasal in syllable-final position, whose place of articulation was

21 Contributions, p. 82.



6io RODNEY SAMPSON

determined by that of the consonantal element which immediately followed it, the palatal approximant [j]. If we consider [j] to be a consonant rather than a vowel-like glide, the sequence [.ji] can be seen to tie up directly with the homorganic sequences of nasal coda consonant + oral onset consonant to which context (i) relates. Thus:

CAMPUM > kam.pu > kdm.pu cCmp'field' QUANDO > k(w)an.du > k(w)d'.du czind'when' CALCANEUM > kal kaji.ju > kal kU"'.ju cdlczi 'heel' SANGUEM > sa.g(w)e > sa'.g(w)e singe 'blood'

Two further points may be made here. First, we may note that in the sequence [jij], there is of course a phonetically palatal nasal [Ji]. Yet its phonological status was quite different from the palatal nasal phoneme that would later develop. At this stage, [.j] only occurred in the sequence [p.j] where it was simply an exponent of the nasal archi- phoneme /N/, whose precise phonetic value was directly conditioned by the place of articulation of the following oral consonant.22

The other point relates to the key assumption made in our proposal that the palatal nasal in Romanian was slow to develop and was certainly delayed long enough for the first stages of vowel nasalization to have got under way befoce it was fully established as a consonant type. Is there any independent supporting evidence for the claim that the development of the palatal nasal ever was delayed in Romance, as we are assuming? In fact, it is known that the fusion of [n] + [j] into a palatal nasal was a lengthy and far from straightforward process in post-Classical Latin.23 This is borne out especially clearly by developments in a number of more peripheral and conservative varieties of Romance which never did go on to create a palatal nasal, even though palatalization by [j] regularly operated on obstruent consonants in these and all other Romance varieties.24 Against this background and given the peripheral location of Dacia within the Latin-speaking world, the delay in [ji] becoming established as a phoneme in early Romanian is not surprising.

22 A good parallel to this is provided by modern English where nasals also adopt the same place of articulation as a following oral consonant; for example, pump, punt, punk. Significantly in the present context of discussion, when a nasal precedes the palatal [j], as in onion, it is typically realized as a palatal in normal speech. 23 Compare with C. Pensado, 'How do Unnatural Syllabifications Arise?! The Case of Conso-

nant + Glide in Vulgar Latin', Folia Linguistica Historica, 8, 1989, pp. I 15-42. 24 The conservative varieties in question are Sardinian and certain southern Italian dialects.

Thus, in the central Sardinian dialect of Nuoro, widely drawn upon because of its conspjcuously archaic phonetic structure, we have CALCANEU(M) > carcanzu [karkandzu] 'heel', VENIO > benzo ['bendzo] 'I come', and so forth (M. Pittau, Grammatica del sardo-nuorese, Bologna, I972).



VOWEL NASALIZATION 6I I

The case offorms such as 'puroi' If our view of the likely circumstances of vowel nasalization in forms such as c6lczi' is correct, there still remains the problem of explaining why nasalization failed to occur in puroi, vulpoi, and so forth.

A possible solution to the problem, touched upon by Vasiliu,25 lies in what we might call 'suffixal solidarity'. In all the words not showing vowel nasalization, the presence of the specific suffix -ONEU(M) / -ONEA is clearly identifiable:

PUR-ONEU (M) cf. PUS, PURIS VULP-ONEU(M) cf. VULPIS LUP-ONEU(M) cf. LUPUS

Furthermore, in most cases the suffix has a strong [+ male] value, as can be seen in later Romanian formations from feminines: broscoi 'male frog', mierloi 'male blackbird', ratoi 'male duck', vrabioi 'cock sparrow'. Now, as is widely recognized, Romanian also possesses other suffixes containing the stressed vowel /o/ which likewise have a [+_male] or more generally a [+ masculine] value, notably -or and -os < -ORE(M), -OSU(M). It therefore appears likely that the suffix -ONEU(M) / -ONEA may have come under the influence of the small family of suffixes which shared the same basic value and characteristic marking vowel, a stressed /o/. The raising effect of nasalization would therefore have been blocked to safeguard the family solidarity.26 An additional factor motivating the preservation of a mid stressed vowel may have been the affective association between a high vowel and diminutiveness. In Romanian, as in many other languages, diminutive suffixes are commonly characterized by a high vowel : -ic(d) -igca -ita -uc -u (a) -uXca -uf(d) as in putinica, morica, fetita, satuc, cdtup', rdtugca, c6ldut,27 and this association may well have worked in a discreet way against raising the vowel in a suffix whose meaning was clearly incompatible with diminutiveness. The only notable anomaly against this background is the preservation of the /o/ vowel in puroi which is at first sight curious. However, it is clear that the -oi element of this word was originally suffixal and we must assume that this item merely fell in with the general pattern which operated with the suffix -ONEU(M) /-ONEA.

25 Fonologia, p. 74. 26 Parallel cases of morphological pressures leading to interference with regular sound change are

familiar in the history of Romance, thanks in large part to the prolific work of the American scholar Yakov Malkiel.

27 Other types of diminutive suffix are also found which contain a non-high vowel, notably -el (f. -ea) and -as. However, the prevalence of high vowels in diminutive suffixes is striking. For a richly illustrated overview of Romanian patterns of word-formation see the contribution of I. Fischer to Lexikon der Romanistischen Linguistik, eds G. Holtus, M. Metzeltin and C. Schmidt, Tiubingen, I 989, III, pp. 33-55.



612 RODNEY SAMPSON

Conclusion

To summarize, at the time when vowel nasalization got under way in Romanian the palatal nasal phoneme /ji/ had not yet formed. The sequence [jij], which was later to develop into the palatal nasal phoneme, did exist and represented one of a set of homorganic sequences of nasal consonant + oral consonant (alongside [m.p], [n.t], [j.g] , and so forth), and like these it triggered nasalization in the preceding vowel. The one notable exception to the operation of vowel nasalization before [j.ij] concerned words containing suffixal -ONEU(M) / -ONEA. These owe their exceptional status to the influence of other closely related suffixes which blocked regular sound change.



Romanian Vowel Nasalization and the Palatal Nasal / ɲ

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Transcript of Romanian Vowel Nasalization and the Palatal Nasal / ɲ