Category talk:Proto-Western-Romance

Preservation of voiceless stops

Aragonese and Gascon dialects near the Pyrenees do not have voicing. Can this be an archaism from PWR? Kwékwlos (talk) 14:18, 29 March 2023 (UTC)

It certainly can be.

However, this is also possible (for all of the below, assume intervocalic position):

1) /pp tt kk/ - /p t k/ - /b d ɡ/

2) /pp tt kk/ - /p t k/ - /β ð ɣ/

3) /pp tt kk/ - /b d ɡ/ - /β ð ɣ/

4) /p t k/ - /b d ɡ/ - /β ð ɣ/ (Proto-Western-Romance)

Finally, in the Pyrenean zone, intervocalic /b d ɡ/ merge into degeminated /p t k/.

We know that original /pp tt kk/ and /p t k/ did eventually merge in Aragonese- the only novelty above is positing that the latter voiced prior to the merger.

It does assume a circular voicing-devoicing development, but it resolves a great deal of awkwardness in the broader Romance context. Nicodene (talk) 14:31, 29 March 2023 (UTC)

Circular development is not a problem as such, but it seems to me that devoicing of intervocalic stops would be highly unusual in the Romance context, wouldn't it? 92.218.236.20 18:06, 21 August 2024 (UTC)

Leonese preservation of final -e

While most Western Romance dialects lose final -e after certain consonants, such as r, Leonese appears to have conserved final -e. Kwékwlos (talk) 02:34, 28 May 2024 (UTC)