User:Nicodene/sandbox

Ways to reduce controversy, in descending order of effectiveness:

• 1: Don't do this in the first place.
• 2: Label the pronunciation as Proto-Romance.
• 3: Limit the pronunciation to Latin words that were inherited, without any unexpected change in their morphology, by at least two of the “primary” branches of Romance. That is, any two out of the following three: an Italo-Western language, a Balkan Romance language (Romanian or its close relatives), Sardinian.
• 4 (looser alternative to #3): Limit the pronunciation to words with at least one inherited Romance descendant (anywhere).

The recommended approach (if not simply 1) is 2 + 3.

The assumed input is the one currently fed into {{la-IPA}} (e.g. vīnum for vinum). Before anything else, assign stress according to the same rules that la-IPA already uses. Next, apply the below changes, in this order. (NB: this is not the actual historical order of changes.) If no context is specified for a change, that means it applies in all positions. Read “→ ∅” as “delete”. The term paroxytone refers to a word stressed on the second-to-last-syllable (e.g. bewílder) and proparoxytone refers to a word stressed on the third-to-last syllable (e.g. bewíldering).

• v → β
• b → β (if between two vowels)
• gu → ɡw (if followed by a vowel)
• qu → kw
• c g → k ɡ
• i → j (if at the beginning of a word+followed by another vowel or if between two vowels)
• h → ∅
• VV → V̄ (two identical adjacent vowels merge into the corresponding long vowel; e.g. cˈohors → kˈoors → kˈōrs)
• Vn → V̄ (before the fricatives /s/ and /f/, the consonant /n/ is lost, and the preceding vowel, if short, is lengthened)
  • Caveat: often did not happen in real life when the /n/ was part of a recognizable prefix (in-, con-)
• m → ∅ (at the end of a polysyllabic word)
• m → n (at the end of a monosyllabic word)
• In proparoxytones, move stress forward if the vowel of the next syllable is followed by a cluster of two consonants (e.g. ˈintegrō → intˈeɡrō).
• ks → s (if followed by another consonant)
• au → au̯
• ae̯ → ɛ
• i e a o u → ɪ ɛ a ɔ ʊ
• ī ē ā ō ū → i e a o u
• i e ɛ → j (if unstressed+followed by another vowel; e.g. cˈavea → kˈaβɛa → kˈaβja)
  • i e ɛ → j (if stressed in a proparoxytone+followed by another vowel; afterwards the stress shifts forward; e.g. cavˈeola → kaβˈɛɔla → kaβjˈɔla)
• kwj → kj (e.g. lˈaqueus → lˈakwɛʊs → lˈakwjʊs → lˈakjʊs)
• o ʊ u → w (if unstressed+followed by another vowel; e.g. iānua → jˈanʊa → jˈanwa)
  • o ʊ u (if stressed in a proparoxytone+followed by another vowel; afterwards the stress shifts backward; e.g. tenˈueram → tɛnˈʊɛra → tˈɛnwɛra)
• w → ∅ (if preceded by a geminate consonant or if followed by any of the vowels o ʊ u; e.g. cˈarduus, bˈattuō → kˈardʊʊs, bˈattʊo → kˈardwʊs, bˈattwo → kˈardʊs, ˈbatto)
• Cj → Cʲ (e.g. cˈavea → kˈaβja → kˈaβʲa)
• ɛ ɔ → e o (if unstressed)
• ʊɪ → ʊi
• ʊ → u (if unstressed+at the end of a word)
• e ɪ → ∅ (if unstressed+at the beginning of a word+followed by the consonant cluster sk)
• i u → ɪ ʊ (in the second syllable of a four-syllable paroxytone, e.g. vestīmˈentum → βɛstimˈɛntʊ → βestimˈɛntu → βestɪmˈɛntu)
  • Caveat: often didn't happen (or was later reversed) in verbs. Cf. the descendants of *oblītāre, which generally have /i/ (thanks e.g. to conjugations where that vowel was stressed)
• e o → i u (if stressed+followed by stʲ)