Proto-Romance language

Proto-Romance is the comparatively reconstructed ancestor of all Romance languages. It reflects a late variety of spoken Latin prior to regional fragmentation.^[1]

Phonology

Vowels

Monophthongs

Diphthong

The only phonemic diphthong was /au̯/.^[2]

Phonetics

• Vowels were lengthened in stressed open syllables.^[3]
• Stressed /ɛ ɔ/ may have yielded the incipient diphthongs [e͡ɛ o͡ɔ] when followed, in the same word, by a syllable containing a close vowel.^[4]
  • Whatever the precise outcome, Maiden argues that this phenomenon would have been limited, at the Proto-Romance stage, to open syllables. That is, it would have applied only to instances of /ɛ ɔ/ subjected to stressed-open-syllable lengthening.^[5]

Constraints

• Neither a distinct /ɛ/ nor /ɔ/ occurred in unstressed position on account of having merged into /e/ and /o/ respectively.^[6]
• Neither a distinct /i/ nor /u/ occurred in the second syllable of words with the structure /ˌσσˈσσ/ (such as càntatóre 'singer') on account of having merged into /ɪ/ and /ʊ/ respectively.^[7]

Consonants

Palatalized consonants

• There is disagreement over whether Proto-Romance had phonemic palatalization.^[9] For the purposes of this article, it is assumed that it did.^{[lower-roman 1]}
• Palatalized consonants tended to geminate in intervocalic position, though the extent of this varied by consonant.^{[10][lower-roman 2]}
• There appears to have been a tendency to merge /dʲ/, /ɡʲ/, and occasionally /βʲ/ into /j/.^[12]
• /tʲ/ was affricated to [t͡sʲ]^[13] or [t͡zʲ].^[14]

Phonetics

• A prop-vowel [ɪ] was added before word-initial /sC/ clusters not already preceded by a vowel (as in /sˈtare/ [ɪsˈtaːɾe]).^[15]
• The sequence /ɡn/ was likely realized as [ɣn] at first, with subsequent developments varying by region.^{[16][lower-roman 3]}
• /j/ was likely realized as [ʝ] or [ɟ], possibly with gemination in intervocalic position.^[17]
• /d/ and /ɡ/ might have been fricatives or approximants in intervocalic position.^[18]
• /s/ might have been apico-alveolar.^[19]
• /ll/ might have been retroflex.^{[20][lower-roman 4]}
• /f/ might have been bilabial.^[21]

Constraints

• /b bʲ/ did not occur intervocalically on account of having merged into /β βʲ/.^[22]
  • The same merger may also have occurred after the consonants /r l/, but this is not entirely clear.^[23]
• /kʷ/ did not occur before back (rounded) vowels on account of having delabialized to /k/.^[24]

Morphology

Note: the spellings provided below are based on those used in Latin and not indicative of reconstructed Proto-Romance pronunciation.

Nouns

Nouns appear to have had three cases: a nominative, an accusative, and a combined genitive-dative.

Several Class III nouns had inflections that differed by syllable count or stress position.

Some nouns were pluralized with -a or -ora, having originally been neuter in Classical Latin. Their singular was treated as grammatically masculine, while their plural was treated as feminine.^[25]

Such nouns, due to their plurals, were often reanalyzed as collective feminine nouns.

Adjectives

Positive

Comparative

Proto-Romance inherited the comparative suffix -ior from Latin, but only in a limited number of adjectives.^{[26][lower-roman 6]}

Otherwise, the typical way to form a comparative seems to have been to add either plus or magis (meaning 'more') to a positive adjective.^[27]

Superlative

With the exception of a few fossilized forms, such as /ˈpɛssɪmʊs/ 'worst', superlatives were formed by adding an intensifying adverb or prefix (/mʊltu, bɛne, per-, tras-/ etc.) to a positive adjective. Comparative forms could also have been made superlative by adding a demonstrative adjective.^[28]

Possessive

Feminine singular forms shown below. In certain cases there was an opposition between 'strong' (stressed) and 'weak' (unstressed) variants.^[29]

Pronouns

Personal

Numerous variant forms appear to have existed. For the third-person genitive-dative inflections, there appears to have been an opposition between 'strong' (stressed) and 'weak' (unstressed) variants, as also with the possessive adjectives.

Relative

The interrogative pronouns were the same, except that the neuter nominative-accusative form was quid.

Verbs

Proto-Romance verbs belonged to three main classes, each characterized by a different thematic vowel. Their conjugations were built on three stems and involved various combinations of mood, aspect, and tense.^[30]

Present indicative

Participles

As in Latin, present participles had an active sense and inflected like class III adjectives, while past participles had a passive sense and inflected like class I/II adjectives. Regular forms would have been as follows (in the accusative feminine singular):

See also

• Palatalization in the Romance languages
• Phonological changes from Classical Latin to Proto-Romance

Notes

References

Bibliography

• Adams, J. N. (2013). Social variation and the Latin language. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0521886147. 
• Alkire, Ti; Rosen, Carol (2010). Romance languages: A historical introduction. New York: Cambridge University Press. 
• Barbato, Marcello (2022). "The early history of Romance palatalizations". doi:10.1093/acrefore/9780199384655.013.750. https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780199384655.013.750. 
• Bauer, Brigitte (2016). "The development of the comparative in Latin texts". in Adams, J.N.; Vincent, Nigel. Early and Late Latin: Continuity or Change?. Cambridge University Press. pp. 313–339. doi:10.1017/CBO9781316450826.015. ISBN 9781316450826. https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/early-and-late-latin/development-of-the-comparative-in-latin-texts/5DCFF6BE64BC810413CF8087428062D6. 
• Burger, André (1955). "Phonématique et diachronie a propos de la palatalisation des consonnes romanes" (in fr). Cahiers Ferdinand de Saussure (Librairie Droz) (13): 19–33. 
• Chambon, Jean-Pierre (2013). "Notes sur un problème de la reconstruction phonétique et phonologique du protoroman: Le groupe */ɡn/". Bulletin de la Société de Linguistique de Paris CVIII: 273–282. 
• De Dardel, R.; Gaeng, P. A. (1992). "La declinaison nominale du latin non classique: Essai d'une methode de synthese" (in fr). Probus 4 (2): 91–125. doi:10.1515/prbs.1992.4.2.91. 
• De Dardel, R.; Wüest, Jakob (1993). "Les systèmes casuels du protoroman: Les deux cycles de simplification". Vox Romanica (52): 25–65. 
• Dworkin, Steven N. (2016). "Do romanists need to reconstruct Proto-Romance? The case of the Dictionnaire Étymologique Roman project". Zeitschrift für romanische Philologie (132): 1–19. doi:10.1515/zrp-2016-0001. https://apps.atilf.fr/homepages/buchi/wp-content/uploads/sites/7/2016/08/Dworkin-2016.pdf. 
• Elcock, W. D. (1960). The Romance languages. London: Faber and Faber. 
• Ferguson, Thaddeus (1976). A history of the Romance vowel systems through paradigmatic reconstruction. Berlin: De Gruyter. 
• Gouvert, Xavier (2015). "Le système phonologique du protoroman: essai de reconstruction". Dictionnaire Étymologique Roman. Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für romanische Philologie. 381. De Gruyter. ISBN 9783110453614. 
• Gouvert, Xavier (2016). "Du protoitalique au protoroman: deux problèmes de reconstruction phonologique". Dictionnaire Étymologique Roman 2. Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für romanische Philologie. 402. De Gruyter. pp. 27–51. 
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• Hall, Robert Anderson (1983). Proto-Romance morphology. Philadelphia: John Benjamins. 
• Lausberg, Heinrich (1970). Lingüística románica. I: Fonética. Madrid: Gredos. 
• Lausberg, Heinrich (1973). Lingüística románica. II: Morfología.. Madrid: Gredos. 
• Leppänen, V.; Alho, T. (2018). "On the mergers of Latin close-mid vowels". Transactions of the Philological Society 116 (3): 460–483. doi:10.1111/1467-968X.12130. 
• Loporcaro, Michele (2015). Vowel length from Latin to Romance. Oxford University Press. 
• Lloyd, Paul M. (1987). From Latin to Spanish. Philadelphia: American Philological Society. 
• Lyons, Christopher (1986). "On the origin of the Old French strong-weak possessive distinction". Transactions of the Philological Society 84 (1): 1–41. doi:10.1111/j.1467-968X.1986.tb01046.x. 
• Maiden, Marten (1995). A linguistic history of Italian. New York: Routledge. 
• Maiden, Martin (2016). "Diphthongization". in Ledgeway, Adam; Maiden, Martin. The Oxford guide to the Romance languages. Oxford University Press. pp. 647–57. 
• Maltby, Robert (2016). "Analytic and synthetic forms of the comparative and superlative from early to late Latin". Early and Late Latin: Continuity or Change?. Cambridge University Press. pp. 340–366. 
• Operstein, Natalie (2010). Consonant structure and prevocalization. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. 
• Petrovici, Emil (1956). "Problema moştenirii din romanica comună a corelaţiei palatale a consoanelor în limba romînă". Ştudii şi Cercetări Lingvistice 7: 163–169. http://dspace.bcu-iasi.ro/handle/123456789/9336. 
• Pope, Mildred K. (1934) (in en). From Latin to Modern French. Manchester: Manchester University Press. 
• Recasens, Daniel (2020). "Palatalizations in the Romance Languages". doi:10.1093/acrefore/9780199384655.013.435. https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780199384655.013.435. 
• Repetti, Lori (2016). "Chapter 39: Palatalization". in Ledgeway, Adam. The Oxford guide to the Romance languages. Oxford University Press. pp. 658–668. 
• Van Den Bussche, H. (1985). "Proto-Romance inflectional morphology. Review of Proto-Romance morphology by Robert Hall.". Lingua 66 (2–3): 225–260. doi:10.1016/S0024-3841(85)90336-5. 
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