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The Portuguese Nasal Vowels: Some Hints from Japanese

Hugh E. Wilkinson

Last year I read an interesting article, of which the author, Rodney

Sampson, lecturer in Romance Philology at the University of Bristol, England,

kindly sent me an offprint. It is entitled “The Origin of Portuguese -ão”, and

was published in Vol. 99 of the Zeitschrift für Romanische Philologie (1983).

In it the author tackles the problem of explaining why the modern Portuguese

reflexes of, say, MANUM, CANEM and RATIONEM appear as mão, cão, razão, all

with the same segment -ão, although they were originally kept distinct as mão,

cã, razõ. He first discusses various unsatisfactory attempts at explanation

previously put forward, and then offers his own penetrating analysis, which he

later discovered was basically in line with one which had already been

proposed as early as 1903 by O. Nobiling. Nobiling laid out his ideas in an

article in Vol. 11 of Die Neueren Sprachen entitled “Die Nasalvokale im

Portugiesischen”, but they had generally been ignored or rejected by later

scholars because Nobiling did not successfully account for why words like lã

and bom had failed to be drawn into the same orbit. Sampson’s article, which

seemed to me to be right in its basic approach, stimulated me to carry out some

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research of my own. It was a new field for me, but from my familiarity with

the phonology of Japanese I feel I am in a position to offer certain observations

which may shed further light on the question and prompt others to pursue the

matter in greater depth.

Before examining Sampson’s thesis in detail, I would like first to review the

main sources of the Portuguese nasal vowels one by one (ignoring special

developments such as the transfer of nasality from one syllable to another).

Firstly, in medial preconsonantal position, we find Latin AN, EN, IN, ON, UN

have developed to [�], [ẽ], [ĩ], [õ], [ũ], as in canto, cento, cinto, ponte, junto

from CANTO, CENTU, CINCTU, PONTE, IUNCTU, and the same thing holds good

for AM and AN(C)/AN(G) etc. Here I have purposely ignored the distinctions

between long and short, close and open vowels in Latin, as they are irrelevant

to the present purpose; Sampson postulates pre-literary raising of the Latin

open E and O to give the present close nasal vowels, and the dual treatment of

the Latin short I and U (entre < INTER but lingua < LINGUA, onda <UNDA but

nunca < NUNQUAM) does not affect the subsequent development in Portuguese.

(I am also ignoring for the moment the fact that Latin N, M are preserved as

stops in Portuguese before a stopped consonant.) Secondly, in words with

intervocalic m from M, n from MN, NN (or from N in learned or other

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borrowings and in words where it has been restored), and nh from *NJ, we

find a dual development; the same nasal vowels as above have been preserved

in Brazilian Portuguese, whereas the nasal quality has been lost in Lusitanian

Portuguese (except in some dialects), so cama, ano, banho are pronounced as

[k�¤ma], [k�¤nu], [b�¤�u] in Brazil, and [k�m�], [�nu], [b��u] in Portugal. These

cases do not present any special problems, but when we come to words with a

single intervocalic N in Latin the situation is much more complicated.

Before a final -E, which was lost in Portuguese, IN and UN developed in the

same way as above, so FINE, COMMUNE became fim [fĩ], comum [kumũ].

Similarly, EN also originally developed to [ẽ] but this later changed to the

diphthong [ẽj] preserved in Brazil, so bem [bẽj] from BENE, but changed again

to [�j]in Portugal, giving [b�j]. This change is probably as old as those we

shall look at next, but cannot be dated because the spelling was left unaffected.

When we come to AN and ON, we can see from the Old Portuguese spelling that

these also developed initially into single nasal vowels, so CANE, RATIONE

became OPtg. cã [kã], razõ [razõ]; but, as we saw in the first paragraph, these

changed later to cão, razão (one exception, attracted to the lã, irmã type

because of its feminine gender, is ferrã, earlier ferrãe, from FARRAGINE; for

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the e cf. Sp. herrén). Before final -ES (-IS) the position is different, as the

vowel was not lost. Here, in the case of EN and IN the principle of like vowels

contracting comes into play, so that TENES becomes first tẽes and then tens

(*[tẽs] > [tẽj�]/[t�jS]), and FINES changes to *fĩes, and then, with the tendency

for unaccented e to close to [i], to fĩis, fins [fĩS]. (By the same token, it is

always possible to imagine that tẽes, being equivalent to *tẽis, developed

directly to the diphthongized form [tẽjS]. In the case of anomalous RENES > rins,

Nunes suggests that in the same way rẽes became *rẽis, and then the first

vowel was assimilated to the second; another possibility seems to me to be that

the word was affected by rinhão.) In the case of the other vowels the -ES

combined with the preceding nasal vowel to form a nasal diphthong, so from

CANES, RATIONES, COMMUNES you get cães [k�jS] with [�]developing out of

[ã] at some stage), razões [r�zõjS] , OPtg. comũes [kumuêjS] changed to comuns

in accordance with the general tendency to reduce [uj] to [u], as Williams

(1962) says, §38.4a).

Before final -U and -OS, which gave Ptg. -o(s), with a tendency for the vowel

to close to [u], the like vowels again contracted into one syllable, so from

BONU, BONOS, UNU, UNOS you get OPtg. bõo(s), now bom, bons [bõ(S)] or

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[bõw(S)], OPtg. ũu(s), now um, uns [ũ(S)]. From EN there developed a similar

nasalized vowel in Old Portuguese, thus PLENU becomes chẽo; but then the

nasalization was lost, and an anti-hiatic i was inserted, giving the modern cheio

(in the same way FENO, MINUS became fẽo, mẽos, but then the n was restored,

giving feno, menos; the fact that the hiatus was preserved, whereas ceo <

CAELU, for example, was monophthongized to céu, may point to the retention

of the nasal quality, and even to the existence of a nasal diphthong [ẽj] until

quite late, see below). The combination IN also resulted in a nasal vowel in Old

Portuguese, so VICINU became vizĩo, but this later changes to viznho

[vizĩê�u]/[vizí�u], though there is a tendency (as I have noted myself) for the

oral occlusion of the nasal consonant not to be complete, resulting in

[vizĩ�ju]/[vizíju], which is in fact the continuation of the old pronunciation, as

we shall see. Finally, -ANU gives -ão, so mão from MANU, which, as Sampson

demonstrates, was a disyllable ([mão] or [mãõ]) in the early stages, as were all

the other combinations of vowel plus -NU.

The position before final -A(S) is similar, mutatis mutandis. Here -ANA

contracts, so LANA > lãa > lã, and the other combinations give rise to a nasal

vowel in Old Portuguese, so PLENA > chẽa, VICINA > vizĩa, BONA > bõa, LUNA

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> lũa. These then develop to cheia, vizinha as cheio, vizinho, and boa, lua

with loss of the nasalization (though bõa, lũa are preserved in dialects; in pena

the n has been restored, and uma has come from ũa by a special development,

but is still rivalled by the latter in popular use).

Sampson is especially interested in the development of OPtg. -ão, -ã and -õ,

and lists other sources of these besides those I have already given. For -ã he

gives -ANNE, as in IOHANNE, OPtg. Joham (I have also found what is perhaps a

Latinizing Johane in Nunes (1943), p. 23), the verbal ending (stressed and

unstressed) -ANT, as in DANT, ERANT, OPtg. dam, eram, and -ANTU in QUANTU,

TANTU, OPtg. quam, tam (I agree with him that these are more likely etyma

than QUAM, TAM, as quanto, tanto are found in Old Portuguese where quão,

tão are used today; compare also the relationship in Spanish between cuan, tan

and cuanto, tanto). To these may be added the apocopated forms of GRANDE

and SANCTU used in pre-noun position, OPtg. gram, sam, still found today

beside grão, são in grã-duque/grão-duque, sambernardo/são-bernardo,

sanfeno; compare tambem beside tão bem and the pair bem-te-vi/benteví (grã is

especially favoured in feminine compounds, as grã-cruz, being apprehended as

the feminine form of grão). In the case of other sources of -õ, Sampson first of

all lists *-ŬDINE, supposing derivation of the Portuguese forms in -õe from a

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Latin form with short U. However, we may suppose several influences at

work in the formation of this semi-learned suffix. Entwistle (1936, p. 301)

gives the oldest form as -idũe (with learned -e), and Nunes (1969, p. 374)

quotes a mansedume showing the same contamination by -TUMINE as in Sp.

mansedumbre and Ptg. costume, Sp. costumbre from CONSUETUDINE; in

comparison with these, forms like multidõe (certidõe, escoridõe etc.) and

multidom are seen to show assimilation to the -ONE type, as Entwistle says, so

that their subsequent development falls in with that of RATIONE. The other

sources given by Sampson are the verbal -UNT, as in SUNT, FUERUNT, OPtg. som,

forom, NON, SINON, OPtg. nom, senom, and *INTUNC, OPtg. entom, all of which

likewise shared the development of -ONE. To round out the picture, let me also

add further sources of -em: IN > em, SINE > sem, NE(C) > nem, with nasalization

of the vowel by the initial n (nem in combination with um gives nenhum, with

the same change of [j]  to [�] as in vizinho), unaccented -INE as in ordem <

ORDINE, chantagem/tanchagem < PLANTAGINE (imitated in words like viagem),

and verbal -ENT, -INT, as in temem < TIMENT, forem < FUERINT.

Sampson also raises, and successfully disposes of, the problem of

anomalous developments in words with Latin etyma in -ONU which sometimes

behave as if they had had -ONE, the words being bom < BONU, dom < DONU,

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som < SONU, tom < TONU, trom (from barely attested TONU with r from

TONITRU? — perhaps rather to be taken as a deverbal from T(R)ONARE),

padrão < PATRONU, and perdão < PERDONU (?). To take the last words first, in

the case of padrão, he notes that the Spanish and Italian forms require

*PATRONE, so this can reasonably be taken as the source also of the Portuguese

word, which has further been crossed with PETRONE in the sense of ‘stone

monument’ (so also Sp. padrón). Perdão is best taken not as coming from

PERDONU but as a deverbal from PERDONARE, like Sp. perdón. Trom makes a

late appearance, and he suggests that it is an early deverbal from T(R)ONARE

(Ptg. troar), like Sp. trueno beside tronar; Nunes, however, in the glossary to

his Chrestomathy (1943), suggests that the word may have come from

Provençal, which seems to me likely in view of the Spanish form tron ‘report

of fire-arms’ quoted in Velázquez’s dictionary, though not in the Academy’s.

Tom he says is also a late form, and this would appear to be consonant with the

fact that the word appears in Spanish as tono or ton, without diphthongization.

These two words may, then (he says), be left out of consideration. The next

pair of words, dom and som, appear in the early cancioneiros in rhyme with

words like razõ, entõ, nõ, which later changed to forms with -ão, and they also

have the plural forms dões, sões, although the modern forms are dom, dons and

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som, sons. He accounts for this by postulating that there were pairs of forms

in each case, the popular, and the literary Provençal-based ones; in this he

would seem to me to be thoroughly justified, given the position in Spanish,

where don (pl. dones) and son (pl. sones) replaced earlier dono and sueno.

(Menéndez Pidal (1968, §83.5) regards don as a deverbal and son as a

borrowing from Provençal, but the use of -e, sometimes lost as here, to form

deverbals suggests to me that outside influence is at work in such formations

also.) Finally, Sampson is bothered by the fact that OPtg. bõo, bom, though

basically disyllabic, “appears not infrequently with monosyllabic value”, but he

finds a simple explanation for this in the fact that monosyllabic bom is the form

used in pre-noun position. Once again, I would add that he is supported in this

by the Spanish use of buen (cf. “Dios, qué buen vassallo, si oviesse buen

señore!” in the Cid), and further by the Italian buon, as in “Buon giorno!” Cf.

also the use of tão, quão, são, grão noted above, and the corresponding Sp. tan,

cuan, san, gran, It. san, gran; we could also add dom < DOM(I)NU beside dono,

cf. Sp. don and dueño, It. don and old donno.

We are now ready to examine Sampson’s proposed solution to the problem

of why OPtg. -ã <-ANE, -ANT etc., -õ < -ONE, -UNT etc., and -ão < -ANU were

merged in one nasal diphthong [�w ] (spelt -ão or, when an unaccented verb

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ending, -am), while -ã< -ANA and -om < -ONU remained unaffected. But

first I would like to turn my attention to certain phonological phenomena in

Japanese which I think have some bearing on the situation in Portuguese, and

then consider certain factors in the other Romance languages which also seem

to be connected.

Japanese does not have nasalized vowels, but it has what is often called a

“syllabic nasal” (because it constitutes one mora in prosody and has a written

symbol of its own in the phonetic kana syllabary). This segment (Romanized

as n) is pronounced as a nasalized semi-vowel when it occurs word-finally or

before a vowel or a consonant other than a stop; before a stop, oral or nasal

(and including a “flapped” r) it becomes a nasal stop assimilated to the

following consonant, that is, [n] before t, d, n or r, [m] before p, b or m, and [ŋ]

before k or g (or its allophone [ŋ]). (I shall use the expression “nasal

semi-vowel” throughout, although “nasal approximant” might perhaps be more

suitable, because we shall meet with many occasions when it is important to

stress the vocalic nature of this segment.) The colour of the semi-vowel varies

slightly depending on the preceding vowel, thus after a back vowel it is [w],

and after a front vowel [j] (to use Sampson’s notation), while after an a it is a

nasalized central semi-vowel, with a tendency to be retracted to [w] before a

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following back vowel and fronted to [j] before a following front vowel. As I

proceeded with my researches, I found one of my sources had used the IPA

symbol [γ] in this case; this is an utterly ill-conceived symbol, as [γ]is a velar

fricative, not a central semi-vowel — something like a [w] with a line through

it is required.) So we find words like sen’i [seji] ‘fibre’ (the apostrophe is used

in the Romanization to indicate syllable division, thus distinguishing the

semi-vowel in sen-i from the plosive in se-ni; I am ignoring the Japanese

pitch-accent in my transcription), fun’iki [фuw iki] ‘atmosphere’, pan o [paw�]

‘bread’ (the noun pan plus the object-marker o), hon o [h�w�] ‘book’ (plus

marker), sen’yō [sejj�:] ‘exclusive use’, denwa [dejwa] ‘telephone (call)’,

sensei [sejsei] ‘teacher’, senshū [sejSu:] ‘last week’, kantanfu [kantawфu]

‘exclamation mark’, kinenhi [kinejçi] ‘monument’, all with a semi-vowel, as

against sentō [sent�:] ‘bath-house’, kandō [kand�:] ‘emotion’, bannin [bannij]

‘watchman’, benri [benri] ‘convenience’, shinpai [Simpai] ‘anxiety’, kanban

[kambaw] ‘notice-board’ (to use my own synbol [w] rather than the [γ]  just

described), unmei [ummei] ‘fate’, tanken [tankej] ‘exploration’, manga [maŋga,

maŋŋa] ‘cartoon’, with nasal stops. Moreover there are indications that this

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nasal semi-vowel developed out of an earlier nasal stop. The words I have

just quoted are (with the exception of the Portuguese pan) all made up of

elements borrowed from Chinese, where a final n is pronounced as [n], and this

[n] survives in certain Japanese loan-words as the initial consonant of the

following syllable, thus Kannon [kann�w] for the bodhisattva commonly

known as the “goddess of mercy”, from the components kan and on, Chinese

Guan-Yin, and Tennō [tenn�:] ‘King of Heaven’, from the components ten and

ō, Chinese Tian-Wang.

In this last example we find Japanese ō, for which the classical spelling

was wau, corresponding to Chinese wang, and similarly in the front series we

find, for example, mei corresponding to meng or ming; the final -ng was

probably originally pronounced as a nasal semi-vowel [w ] or [j] in Japanese,

followed by a ‘vowel of support’, and these were then denasalized to [w] and

[j], and the resulting [wu] and [ji] formed a diphthong with the preceding

vowel, which was then often simplified to a single vowel. In native Japanese

words too we find a similar development from an original -ni, -nu, -mi, -mu,

and even -ma. Firstly we find these segments reduced to a “syllabic nasal”

when in close connection with a following syllable, thus shinde from shinite,

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gerund of shinu ‘die’, yonde from yomite, gerund of yomu ‘read’ sakinjite

from saki ni shite ‘in advance’ (lit. ‘getting in front’), shirankao from shiranu

kao ‘air of innocence’ (lit. ‘not-knowing face’; in classical Japanese the

negativizing suffix -nu was attached only to the attributive form of the verb

used to qualify a following noun, hence the reduction to -n, but this -n is now

used as the negative suffix for the main verb, which comes at the end of the

sentence). In the above cases we may, if we wish, suppose that the intervening

vowel has been dropped and the nasal stop assimilated directly to the following

consonant, as has happened in colloquial speech in the case of the particles no

and mono, e.g., takai n’desu ‘it is expensive’, shitteru mon’ka? ‘how should I

know?’, and in other cases of contraction, e.g., main(i)chi ‘every day’. But we

cannot completely exclude the possibility that there was another stage

preceding this, as we find other cases where we must suppose that not only has

the vowel been dropped but the nasal stop has become a nasal semi-vowel

which may or may not then lose its nasality. The factors governing this last

dual development are not clear. In some cases we may see an opposition

between what were originally merely positional variants. Thus from Old

Japanese yukamu, the presumptive mood of yuku ‘go’, we get the modern

colloquial ikō ‘let’s go’ < yukau < *yukawu (see Miller (1967), p. 328)

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alongside the classical yukan, which may have been standardized from a

group like yukan to suru ‘try to go’, where the *yukaw (u) has become yukan

before the following t. As further examples we find that Old Japanese asaomi

‘court official’ has become ason (Miller, ibid., p. 215) when it is a common

noun, but has also given the surname Asō (< Asou), while from the ancient

kamibe ‘god house’ have come both the place name Kōbe (< Kaube <

*Kaw(i)be) and the surname Kanbe (Miller, p. 206). The one example in the

standard language of the contraction of -ma is found in -san from -sama, the

honorific attached to personal names, but cf. also the colloquial gozansu,

contracted from gozaimasu ‘be’. (Although Japanese always need to be

reminded, when learning English, that English n is not the same as their

syllabic nasal, an example of the nasal semi-vowel can in fact be found in

careless pronunciation, as when we say “I don’ wanta go,” assimilating the n to

the w and saying [dóuw w�nd´].)

To return to our main theme by way of Latin and the other Romance

languages, we find that these phonological conditions in Japanese give a clue

firstly to the nature of final -M and of N before S and F in Latin. As is well

known, in poetical prosody a final -M “made position” (acted as a consonant

constituting one mora) before a consonant, but was elided before a vowel

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(though the poets tended to avoid eliding it before a short vowel). This kind

of phenomenon is easily explained if we suppose that the -M was a nasal

semi-vowel like the Japanese one; before a following vowel it formed a

diphthong with the preceding vowel, which was elided like any other

diphthong, so tant(um) est, before a consonant other than a stop (e.g. s, f ) it

formed a diphthong which was not elided, so tantum sonum [tántuw s�nuw]

and before a stop it was assimilated and became a nasal stop, so tantum

terrorem [tántun terró:rej] Similarly the N which tended to be lost (and finally

was so) before S and F without apparently nasalizing the previous vowel

(though this was lengthened in compensation) must have been this nasal

semi-vowel, similar to those which we shall see have sometimes been lost in

Romance. In late Latin, the -N in a post-tonic syllable, as in the word NOMEN,

must also have been weakened and then lost, judging from the Romance

reflexes, e.g., before S, NOMEN SUUM; but it seems that there was also a parallel

form *NOMENE (or NOMEN was replaced by NOMINE, the oblique form), and the

similarity between NOMEN and REM, QUEM must have led to the formation of

*RENE, *Q(U)ENE as *NOMENE, the etyma required by Romance.

When we come to the Romance languages, leaving aside Portuguese to

which we will turn our attention later, the obvious example of a language with

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nasal vowels is French. The authorities are agreed (cf., for example,

Bourciez (1967-2, §44. hist.)) that in Old French the nasəl vowel was still

followed by a nasal stop before a stopped consonant, as it is in Portuguese, so

OFr. ante [ãntə], estrange [estrãndZə], chambre [tSãmbrə], estanche

[estãntSə], as Ptg. centra, canto, branco, campo etc. (the weakening and loss of

the nasal stop began in Middle French); so also the Japanese nasal semi-vowel

becomes a stop in this position. I have chosen these particular examples from

French because of the evidence of English, where we get the spellings aunt,

staunch/stanch and ME straunge, chaumbre. This use of aun, aum for OFr. an,

am suggests to me that with the weakening of the n, m (as in Japanese an) there

developed a nasal diphthong similar to the Portuguese [�w ], which was

imitated in English by inserting a u, which also appears in Anglo-Norman from

the 13th century onwards. On the other hand we find that in French -ANU has

developed to -ain, as main < MANU. We can only speculate about what the

earliest sound in Old French was, but this spelling (and the maent < MANET of

the Eulalie) suggests to me that the A was raised as it was before other single

consonants, perhaps to the stage [æ], and in consequence the N changed to a

front semi-vowel, giving a diphthong [mæj] to which compare Ptg. bem and

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Japanese en [ej]. After a back vowel you would get [w], producing a back

vowel diphthong, so bon [b�w ] comparable to Ptg. bom and Japanese on [�w].

(Here English spellings like bounty are unconnected, as the ou indicates the

Norman-French vowel [u].) In the work just quoted, Bourciez makes no

reference to the kind of sound intervening in the stage between the full

pronunciation of n, m and their loss, but in his Eléments (1967-1) he uses the

symbol n to indicate a “son réduit” when describing the sounds both of Old

French and of the modern southern pronunciation of standard French (§§266c,

540c). As he uses the same symbol indiscriminately to describe nasals in both

preconsonatal (whether before a stop or otherwise) and final position (OFr.

grãnt, vẽndre, bõn, pãyn/pẽ yn, It. penso), it is clear that he has not determined its

precise value, but the similarity to the development in Portuguese seems to me

striking. One more feature which modern French shares with modern

Lusitanian Portuguese is the loss of nasality in the vowel preceding a medial n

or m, as in Fr. bonne, femme, Ptg. ano, fome.

Outside French we find frequent reference being made (e.g.: Bourciez

(1967-1), Bec (1970, 1971), Rohlfs (1949)) to a final n being pronounced [ŋ] in

some Provençal, Rhaeto-Romance and North Italian dialects. It is not clear to

me whether this [ŋ] is a true representation of the sound used or whether (as I

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suspect) it is an imprecise description of what is in fact a nasal semi-vowel;

in either case it must be that at some stage the Latin N developed into a nasal

semi-vowel. In this respect, and also in certain others which we shall examine,

all the Western Romance languages have something in common with

Portuguese. If we take the case of Italian first, we find interesting examples

provided by Rohlfs (1949, §305) of developments in the northern dialects. In

general the tendency is either towards nasalization of the vowel, giving [mã],

[bõ], [veziĩ] or towards changing the n to what he describes as [ŋ], giving

[maŋ], [boŋ], [veZíŋ], though in some areas, including parts of Sicily, all

nasalization is lost, resulting in [ma], [bo], [vezí]. (In some areas we find a

nasalized diphthong like the Portuguese one in bem, but coming from -INU, so

leĩ, avžeĩ from LINU, VICINU.) In other areas again we find that the quality of

the nasal differs in accordance with the quality of the preceding vowel; after [a]

we find [ŋ], so [maŋ], [kaŋ], but the plural forms, with a front vowel, are [me�],

[ke�], like [vi�], [fi�] (where his [�] either stands for, or has come from, my

[j]), and after a back vowel the result is [m] (from my [w]?), so [bom], [trum]

(= Ptg. trom; compare also the development of an [m] in Ptg. uma). In other

areas this [m] has been generalized, giving [mam] and [bem] as well as [bom].

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These differences all correspond closely to the differences of quality in the

Japanese “syllabic nasal” depending on the preceding vowel (an [m] can also

sometimes be heard in Japanese at the end of a sentence, as the speaker closes

his mouth). Bourciez (1967-1, §401) also mentions a stage [pãn] not noted by

Rohlfs, though the latter quotes [mãŋ], [vĩŋ] from Gallo-Italian colonies in

Sicily. Another feature shared by some areas in the north and in Sicily is the

loss of the nasal consonant without nasalization of the vowel before the plural

ending -i, so mai, boi/bui, kai/kei, ražoi (see Rohlfs, ibid., §223).

Medially before a stop Rohlfs also speaks (§271) of a northern tendency to

nasalize the vowel, giving gãmba, dẽnt; further developments are seen in gãba,

dẽt and [kuŋtróa] (= contrada), [tsiŋtýra] (= cintura), [kóŋpu] (= campo). For

the northern development before a fricative such as s, Bourciez (ibid., §401)

gives for one area the stage penso, and for another penso, with his “son réduit”,

which I take to be the nasalized semi-vowel; I myself have heard this reduced

pronunciation of n from certain persons when they are speaking standard

Italian, before s, as in penso, and also before f, as in conforto (where the sound

is usually described as being a labio-dental nasal stop). Rohlfs makes no

mention of any special northern development in this case, though in connection

with the development before a stop he cites [páŋsa] (= pancia) and [múŋze,

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múŋʒe] (= mungere), which could be examples of the same thing. (Instead

of any reduction of the nasal he speaks of the intercalation of a [t] between n

and s ― compare the generally homophonous sense and cents in English ―,

especially in the south, but also occasionally in the north, where perhaps we

should see the effect of hypercorrection.) Similar developments are also found

in the north when a Latin N occurs between two vowels (in effect, before an -A).

The first stage Rohlfs (§223) takes to be the nasalization of the vowel with

retention of the n, so lãna, spina, and, with a diphthong, kadeina, aveina,

showing a development similar to that in Portuguese. (Examples of a stage

closer to that of Old Portuguese, where the vowel is nasalized and the n lost, he

only quotes from Gallo-Italian areas of Sicily, citing such words as lua, kadea.)

The next stage, he says, is seen in words like [láŋna], [kadéŋna], out of which

developed [láŋa] and [kadéŋa]. Now I find [ŋn], as it stands, a highly unlikely

combination to have arisen from a single n, but if we take [ŋ] to stand for the

semi-vowel then [kadéŋna] is equivalent to [kadéjna], similar to kadẽina above,

but without nasalization of the e; here the semi-vowel is evidently protracted

(as also in [kuŋtróa], [tsiŋtýra], [kóŋpu] above) and only momentarily

assimilated to the following stop. The progression from lãna, kade ina to [láŋa],

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[kadéŋa], where [ŋ] evidently denotes an intervocalic nasal semi-vowel, is

interesting in that it suggests the course of development that may have been

followed by Portuguese, which possibly went through the stage (to use the

same notation) *[lãŋa], *[kadẽĩŋa], differing from the Italian forms only in the

retention of the nasalization of the vowel.

In the case of Rhaeto-Romance, Bourciez (1967-1, §517) simply mentions

that final n is generally “velar”, especially in the eastern part of the area; his

indication of a velar in Friul. visin (§515) is in line with Bec’s phonetic

transcription of final n’s as n˙ in this dialect (1971, pp. 352–353). Another

development which is interesting when compared with French is the

diphthongization of A into au before preconsonantal n or m (Bec, 1971, p. 317)

in words like avaunt, quaunt, abundaunza, aunghel (with further regional

development to o, as in grond, conta, comba), and also before a single medial

Latin N, M, as in maun, paun, launa, schaum/som (EXAMINE), cloma, fom (with

local development of -aun to [Eun]>[Em].

Travelling west, we find first that Provençal and Catalan are famous for

their “unstable n”, which is sometimes present and sometimes lost, as in ma(n),

be(n), bo(n), without nasalization of the preceding vowel. Here again we may

suppose that the n was first weakened to a nasal semi-vowel. In Catalan the n is

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preserved before -s in the plural and the 2nd person of the verb, so mans,

bons, tens, vens; Badía Margarit (1951, §36.ⅴ) makes no special distinction

between the pronunciation of n before s and before d or t (before f he says it is

labio-dental) but notes that it is weakened or even lost (vulgarly) in a pre-tonic

syllable, as in the groups ins-, cons-, trans- (note that in Old Catalan the n is

often omitted before a final s, and cons- and cos- are both used), This and the

additional fact that final n and m are regularly assimilated to the following

consonant in close semantic groups (ibid., §§33-38) lead me to suppose that

probably there is a tendency here too for the n to become a semi-vowel.

Provençal seems to have no trace of nasalized vowels or of a nasal

semi-vowel, but Bourciez (ibid., §540c) says that the modern southern

pronunciation of standard French employs n (using the symbol which, as we

have seen, he also uses to describe the sounds of Old French and northern

Italian), saying monde or even monde. (For this pronunciation of n before a stop

compare the “protracted” nasal semi-vowel in NIt. [kóŋpu].) In Gascon, on the

other hand, we find a development very close to that seen in Portuguese. The n

in final position Bec (1970, p. 535) describes as being [ŋ] and the preceding

vowel is nasalized, giving [pãŋ], [bũŋ], [bĩŋ], [bẽŋ], as the pronunciation of

pan, bon, vin, ben. His use of [ŋ] may be correct here, as he says a [k] is often

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intercalated in the west before the plural s, so [pãŋks] — cf. placenames

such as Hontanx, Hinx — though in the east the n disappears and pans is

pronounced [pas]. On the other hand, note that in the phonetic transcription on

pp. 553-54 the n is assimilated to the following consonant, suggesting that it is

in fact a nasal semi-vowel.) Another development in line with that in

Portuguese is the loss of intervocalic n, as in vezía, cadía, lua, ua, perdoar,

semiar; but sometimes, also as in Portuguese, like vowels seems to coalesce

and retain their nasality, so lan < LANA, jan < IAN(U)A, averan < ABELLANA

(ibid., p. 521).

In Spanish we find that the intervocalic n has remained stable, with no

tendency to nasalize the preceding vowel, but the development described by

Bourciez with regard to It. penso in the northern dialects is reported also for

Spanish by Menéndez Pidal (1968, §33.1 e), who presents a welcome contrast

by using precise phonetic terms. He says (and I summarize) that if the

following consonant is a fricative the preceding nasal is generally pronounced

without oral occlusion, with only a tenseness being produced; in this case the

air for the most part escapes through the nose in the usual way, but at times the

vowel is nasalized, and in careless speech the oral articulation of the nasal may

disappear. In this way (to express his statement in my terms) you can get three

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stages, [pjéjso], [kowfórto] or [pjẽjso], [kow fórto] or [pjeso], [kõfórto], of

which the middle one is directly comparable to the situation in Portuguese. In

ensuing sections Menéndez Pidal describes the same development as taking

place before a stop (including the orally stopped nasal), except that in this case

he speaks (imprecisely), when describing the pronunciation of mp, of a more or

less complete double occlusion, both alveolar and bilabial, by which I take it

that he is trying to express the use of a “protracted” nasal semi-vowel followed

momentarily by a nasal stop, so (to use Rohlfs’ transcription) [koŋmpa�éro] (=

[kowm-]). He also speaks (imprecisely, as I suspect) of the frequent “velar”

pronunciation of a final n, perhaps more in the north, giving as an example

salon [salõŋ]; as he uses the same symbol [ŋ] to describe the “non-occlusive

velar nasal” used before a [w] (i.e. my [w]), writing [ũŋ wéko] for un hueco, I

suspect that in this case too what he is describing is a nasal semi-vowel. Note

that before both pre-occlusive and final n there is a tendency to nasalize the

vowel, forming another point of similarity with Portuguese. As I said just now,

intervocalic n is stable, but Bourciez (ibid., §337d) remarks that forms like lua

for luna are found dialectally in Andalusia, and García de Diego (1978, pp.

157-58) gives examples of the loss of n in Asturian dialects spoken in areas

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bordering on Galicia.

One more language we have not referred to yet is Rumanian, and here also

we have cases of the loss of n, which probably originated in a weakened

articulation. Firstly, the final -NT of verb forms has been lost. (In Sardinian, on

the other hand, which shows no signs of the weakening of the nasal, a Latin N

in a final syllable has been reinforced by a paragogic vowel, so cantan(t)a <

CANTANT, and similarly nomene < NOMEN.) Then in standard Daco-Rumanian

[�] has been reduced to [j], whereas it is still preserved elsewhere, as in

Mac.-Rum. viñu ‘I come’ as against Daco-Rum. viu, from ORum. viniu. Here

we can imagine an intervening stage like the popular pronunciation of Ptg.

vinho with weakened occlusion. Another feature of Rumanian is the “rhotacism

of n”; in the older language a word like bine is written in Cyrillic letters

conventionally transliterated as binre, and the pronunciation bire is still found

dialectally today, though the standard language has bine (the substitution of r

for n is also still a feature of Istro-Rumanian today). It is not clear what the

pronunciation of this nr was, but this graphy has generally been taken as

indicating that the preceding vowel was nasalized, so that binre = [bĩre]. In

three words, grâu < GRANU, frâu < FRENU and brâu ‘belt’ (from Albanian?),

the n is missing from the singular forms but appears in the plural; rhotacized

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spellings are not attested for the singular forms, but in spite of that the

simplest explanation for the loss of the n would seem to be dissimilation of the

second of the two r’s in a form like *grâru (cf. the dissimilatory loss of r in

ciur < CRIBRU).

From all the foregoing we can see that the process that has taken place in

Portuguese, so far from being an isolated one, is in line with widespread

tendencies that have existed right from Latin times. As to what the actual

present-day situation in Portuguese is, I am dependent on Sampson and other

written sources for my information, and here there is a certain amount of

discrepancy. Williams (1962) and Barker (1954) agree with Sampson and his

sources that a nasal stop is heard after the nasal vowel before a following

consonant which is a stop (just as the Japanese syllabic nasal becomes a stop),

so cento [sẽntu], cinco [sĩŋku], sempre [sẽmpr�]; this happens equally in a

group of closely connected words, so an [n] is heard in em diante, eram tres, an

[m] in la branca, and an [ŋ] in um contendor (see Barker, 1954, p. 26).

(Historically, a similar phenomenon can be seen in the preservation of [n]

before l, leading to the formation of enno (> no) from *en-lo; compare the

Japanese [n] in words like inro, benri.) But the dictionaries by Taylor (1970)

and Houaiss & Avery (1964) which give the Brazilian standard, do not

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recognize any difference of treatment depending on the following

consonant. Also Taylor gives, for example, [vĩ�u], [pu�u], while the other

gives [ví�u] [pú�u]. Again, only Sampson shows the nasalization as extending

right through the diphthong, although elsewhere the approximate descriptions

of the sounds in terms of English phonology make it clear that such is the case.

But in any case I would like to take Sampson as my authority.

Sampson (in accordance with the subject of his article) does not pay any

special attention to the quality of the nasal in medial position before a

consonant, but his observations about the occlusive character of the nasal

before a following stop, when taken together with other observations which I

shall deal with next, suggest to me that preconsonantal n and m in Portuguese

are similar to the Japanese syllabic nasal and, partly, to their counterparts in

Spanish and Italian, that is, they remain as stops before a following stop and

become nasal semi-vowels before other consonants; note too that one of the

developments we have just looked at in Spanish is the nasalization of the vowel

in such a position, producing a pronunciation like [pje jso], which I take to be

very close to the Portuguese pronunciation [pẽjso]. (The Old French

pronunciation, too, was probably similar, as is the Gascon.) In fact this

hypothesis agrees with the statement taken (or paraphrased) by Sampson (n.

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14) from Almeida, if it can be taken at its face value: “When a nasal vowel

occurs before a non-nasal consonant, between them is inserted a brief nasal

consonantal segment homorganic with the following non-nasal consonant.”

This means that if the following consonant is, for example, an s, the

homorganic nasal consonant will have to be one pronounced without full

occlusion, in other words the semi-vowel I have been describing, and such a

semi-vowel, e.g. the [j] in penso [pẽjsu], will constitute a mora just as much as

the [n] in centro [sẽntru] or the [j] in bem [bej], [b�j], a fact which is concealed

by the conventional phonetic representation as [pẽsu]

What Sampson is concerned with is the development of the nasal vowels,

and especially the diphthongs, in final position. Of the latter there are three in

modern Lusitanian Portuguese and four in Brazilian: [�j] as in mae, Lus. [�j],

Braz. [ej]as in bem, tem, and also in unaccented syllables as in homem, viagem,

temem, [�w] as in mão, são and, post-tonically, in órfão, rábão, falam (the

spelling -am only used in verb forms), and [o j] as in põe (newly created to

match the 2nd person pões, and replacing OPtg. pon, which should have

become *pão; in the same way Sampson notes that OPtg. subj. perdon was

replaced by perdoe, which matched the other forms of perdoar). (There is one

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more isolated nasal diphthong in Portuguese, the [uj] in muito, where the

vowel was nasalized by the initial m.) These same diphthongs also occur before

the plural ending -s of nouns and adjectives, as in mães, cães, bens, homens,

viagens, mãos, órfãos, razões, and in the verbal forms vens, tens, pões and vêm,

têm, põem; the pronunciation of these last three with two nasal diphthongs, one

after the other, Sampson says is probably artificial, as these words are

popularly pronounced in the same way as the singulars vem, tem, põe (but the

articulation of two diphthongs together is comparable to that of the

combinations seen in Japanese sen’en ‘¥1,000’, ten’in ‘shop assistant’, kon’in

‘matrimony’; Old Portuguese also had mãen < MANENT, comparable to

Japanese man’en ‘¥10,000’). Incidentally, Sampson says that the only time

these diphthongs are found in non-final position (other than before final -s and

in the other forms noted above) is when they occur in diminutive formations

such as cãozinho, liçãozita, but in fact they can also occur in compound words

such as the grão-duque, são-bernardo quoted above, and bem-querer,

benquisto, enquanto, quemquer, and also in formations like embalar, empregar.

Enquanto is quoted by Barker as “emquanto” [åĭŋkŭ�ntu] in the 1954 edition,

in the section on the pronunciation of m (p. 26), but was removed from the

1969 edition because of the change in the orthography; embalar and empregar

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appear in the 1954 edition with [ĩm], but this has been changed to [�ĭm] in

the 1969 edition, and I fancy that [�ĭm] is used when this syllable has a

secondary accent, whereas [ĩm-] is the unaccented pronunciation heard in

embalo, emprego.

Besides these diphthongs there are four simple vowels in final position, as

seen in lã (and post-tonically in órfã), fim, bom, um. Here Sampson, in line

with Nobiling, recognizes what he calls an “off-glide” in the form of a nasal

semi-vowel following the vowel, thus [l�γ], [fĩj] [bow ],[u w ]. The symbol [γ] is

his phonetic interpretation of the symbol used by Nobiling, and is, as I wryly

observed earlier, the IPA symbol for a central nasal semi-vowel of the type

heard in Japanese an (see kanban above) and commonly to be heard in a word

like Sp., It. manso. It will be noted that of the five standard vowels only e is not

represented in this series; however, in phonetic terms the Brazilian [ej] as in

bem, which is the historical predecessor to the Lusitanian [�j], does in fact fit

into this series as the front vowel counterpart to [o w ] as in bom (though

perhaps we should emphasize the diphthongal quality more by writing [eij],

[�ij]), and this fact is of importance in understanding the historical

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development of the nasal diphthongs.

Now, Sampson uses the word “off-glide”, meaning that this sound was

generated by the preceding nasal vowel. But this conception I feel needs to be

examined in the light of the situation we have found to exist in the other

Romance languages and the phonetic combinations that the evidence of

Japanese shows to be possible. We have noted that in every case the tendency

has been to reduce the occlusion in what was originally a nasal stop, thus

producing a nasal semi-vowel (Bourciez’s “son réduit”), with or without

accompanying nasalization of the vowel. Rohlfs, as we have seen, in

discussing the northern Italian reflexes of MANU, LANA and the like, surmises

that [aŋ] was a later development from [ã]. But if we suppose that the first step

in the process of change was the nasalization of the vowel (which seems a

reasonable assumption on general phonetic grounds; cf. the nasalization before

n and m heard in many non-British varieties of English), it would seem to me

to be more natural to imagine that Rohlf’s [aŋ] came from an earlier [ãn] with

the [n] retained rather than from [ã] with loss of [n], so that his [láŋna] would

represent one intervening stage. If we imagine another intervening stage was

*[lãŋna], then it only requires a relaxation of the occlusion in the [n] to produce

*[lãŋa], that is, [lãγa], with the segment that Nobiling suggests was heard in

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OPtg. -ã. We have also seen from examples like the various Spanish

pronunciations of pienso that the pronunciation with weakened oral occlusion

of the n (with or without nasalization of the preceding vowel) is the mid-way

stage between full pronunciation of the n, as in [pjénso] and its total loss, as in

[pjẽso]. It therefore seems to me most reasonable to suppose that Sampson’s

“off-glide” semi-vowel in fact represents the last trace of the vanishing nasal

stop. As I see it, then, the Latin intervocalic N weakened in the

Portuguese-speaking area to the nasal semi-vowel heard in Japanese words like

han’i ‘range’, sen’en ‘¥1,000’, fun’iki ‘atmosphere’, and this process was at

some stage accompanied by nasalization of the preceding vowel, giving (to use

the Sampson-Nobiling transcription, and ignoring vowel-length and quality)

*[k�γe], *[beje], *[fĩje],*[radzjõw e], *[komuw e] and *[maγo], *[tSejo], *[vĩjo],

*[bõwo], *[uw o], *[lãγa], *[tSeja], *[vedzĩja], *[bow a], *[uw a]. (Also, with a

final [-i], *[vĩj] from VĒNĪ.) By the Old Portuguese stage final -e, -i had fallen,

giving can, ben, fin, razon, comun, vin (or cã, bẽ, etc.) with the nasal

semivowel now as the final segment. (Lausberg (1967, §405) attributes the

diphthong in bem to the merging of the tonic vowel with the final -e, but he is

shown to be wrong by the fact that the same diphthong is generated in em < IN

and nem < NE(C), and by the difference of treatment between the singulars ca,

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razõ and the plurals cães, razões, which derives from the absence or

presence of the e.) In the case of ben, fin and vin (bem, fim, vim) this gives the

pronunciations OPtg. and mod. Braz. [bẽj], retracted to [b�j] in Portugal, and

old and modern [fĩj], [vĩj]. Similarly we get OPtg. [razõw ] now fronted to the

central position as [r�z�w ], and old and modern [kumuw ]. In the case of cã we

must imagine from the later form cão that, as Sampson says, the semi-vowel

after ã became [w], similar to the sound heard in Japanese pan o, and recalling

the representation of Old French an by aun in Middle English. For the changes

to the central vowel seen in [ej ]> [�j] and [ow ] > [�w ] Sampson postulates an

intervening stage consisting of the lowering of the vowel; if there is historical

evidence to justify this assumption I cannot argue with it, but if it is mere

speculation I would consider it to be an unnecessary supposition, and not in

accordance with the preservation (or at least the present existence) of [ej]

(rather than *[εj] in Brazil, and the pronunciation of bom as [bõ] (or [bow] )

rather than *[bç(w )]. To me the change from [o w ] to [�w ] is parallel to the

centring of [ou] found in English and Catalan, and occasioned, as Sampson

notes (p. 54), by “the basic asymmetry of the vowel quadrilateral.” He

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explains: “As is well known, the available space in the back vowel series is

less than in the front vowel series, so that the differentiating tendency would

need to be taken further with a back diphthong to give it a comparable ‘spread’

to a front diphthong.” (This is one reason underlying the occasional fronting of

[u] to [ü] or [y], a phenomenon not limited to the Romance languages.) In

standard British English, and in the pronunciation of many American speakers,

the /ou/ phoneme is pronounced as [öu] or [öou] with a centred first element,

so that many phoneticians now describe the vowel as [əu], mistakenly in my

opinion, as the [ə] is an exaggerated pronunciation not representative of the

majority of educated speakers, and the phonemic value is still /ou/. Similarly

the OCat. vou and crou (< VOCE, CRUCE) have become the modern veu, creu,

and the same tendency is found regionally in other words like nou < NOVE(M),

jou < IUGU. For the centring of [ei], compare the changes in Old French from

[ei] to [oi], as in mei > moi, fei> foi, which must have gone through the stage

[ëi]; Rumanian also centres e sometimes, but under conditions not connected

with the present subject. The raising of [ã] to [�] is a separate phenomenon,

comparable to the raising of a before n in Rumanian, probably first to a

mid-high central vowel, as in Portuguese, and finally to a high central vowel.

Before the plural -s, the E of Latin -ES was retained as [i] and merged with

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the tonic vowel in words like fins, and combined to form a diphthong which

was later simplified in words like comuns. In the case of other tonic vowels the

original diphthong remains, giving bens, where the development coincides with

that of the singular bem, but cães, razões, which stand in contrast to the

singulars cão, razão. What must have happened is that the semi-vowels in each

case (and also in that of OPtg. comũes) were fronted to [j ] before the e

(phonetically [i]), giving *[kãjis] > [k�jS] and *[razojis] > [r�zõjS]. Compare a

similar phenomenon in Japanese words like kan’yū [kajju:] ‘canvassing’,

kon’ya [k�jja] ‘tonight’.

We are left with the combinations of vowel and N before final -U and -A,

and of these we have seen that -INU and -INA developed from -ĩo, -ĩa to -inho,

-inha, and in the case of -ENU, -ENA, -ONA and -UNA the nasal was lost. As in

the previous cases, I take it that in pre-literary times, and in fact also in Old

Portuguese, all of these words had a nasal semi-vowel between the vowels,

similar to those in Japanese ken’o ‘hatred’, bijin o ‘beautiful woman (+ object

marker)’ (very close in pronunciation to OPtg. vizio), jin’ai ‘philanthropy’,

ren’ai ‘love’, hon’an ‘adaptation’, bun’an ‘draft’. We have seen that vizinho,

vizinha still tend to keep the semi-vowel of older vizĩo, vizĩa, rather than being

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pronounced with fully occlusive [�], and that cheio, cheia have a diphthong

like old chẽo, chẽa (which had [ej]), but without nasality. Uma has come from

ũa [uw a], through occlusion of the [w] to [m]; it is possible that a similar

occlusion was involved in the cases of “restoration of the n”, as in pena, feno,

menos for old pẽa, fẽo, mẽos.

This leaves -ANU, -ONU, -UNU and -ANA, which developed to the modern

-ão, -om, -um and -ã. All were originally disyllabic, as we see from the old

spellings mãao, bõo, huu and lãa, and Sampson quotes examples of bõo, mão

and similar words scanned as disyllables in poetry. At the same time, as we

have seen, he notes that bõo (bon, bom) is a monosyllable in pre-noun position,

corresponding to Sp. buen, It. buon; by the same token we may note that

pre-nominal um was also monosyllabic, as in the line he quotes on p. 63, “ne

hu conselho boõ que filhar”. In all these cases, once again, there must have

been an intervocalic nasal semi-vowel in pre-literary times, which almost

certainly survived into Old Portuguese, giving the pronunciations *[mãγo]

(which developed into *[mawo] through the rounding effect of the -o; cf. a

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similar tendency noted above in the case of Japanese pan o), *[bõw o],

[ũw o], *[lãγa], with segments comparable to those in Japanese han’on

‘semitone’, hon o ‘book’ (+ object marker), bun’un ‘cultural progress’, Nan-A

‘South Africa’. (Note that the Japanese pan just referred to is a loan from Ptg.

pão, as are kirishitan < cristão, juban < jubão/gibão and botan < botão; in

each of these cases the Japanese -an was evidently felt to be acoustically close

enough to the Portuguese -ão to be suitable for representing it.)

In the case of lãa and hũu the two similar vowels merged to give lã, um, but

the semi-vowel remained (now at the end of the word), as I see it, to give the

“off-glide” noted by Sampson and Nobiling. In the same way the separate

vowels of disyllabic mão and bõo coalesced to give monosyllabic mão and

bom, and mão thus fell in with cão and razão, which had already developed

from cã and razõ at an earlier date. In this way we can see that the convergent

development of cão and mão can be explained on purely phonetic grounds if

we assume the existence of a nasal semi-vowel from earliest times. With regard

to the development from -ã to -ão, Sampson at one point quotes Tilander’s

unsatisfactory explanation that the process started out from a small number of

nouns with co-existing parallel forms in -ã and -ão, such as escrivã/escrivão,

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ortolã/ortolão, an explanation which he (Sampson) dismisses as highly

questionable (p. 45), since such a small number of little-used words could

hardly have set off such a wide-ranging process, though he agrees that it could

have encouraged it. (The word escrivã is quoted as coming, like ortolã, from

Provençal, whereas escrivão and ortolão are the native forms. This may have

been true at this particular historical stage, but in fact escrivão is a later

remodelling of an etymological escrivã < *SCRIBANE(M) — cf. OSp.

escriván/escribán, now escribano (see Lausberg, 1962, §590) — , which

perhaps died out and was then reintroduced from Provençal. Another good

example of the same process is to be found in selection 10 of Sampson’s own

Early Romance Texts (1980): jrmitã/jrmitão < *EREMITANE(M), with pl.

jrmitãaes, where jrmitão is shown to contain the -ANU segment by the presence

in the same piece of pam, not yet changed to pão — unless -am was already

equivalent to -ão.)

The contraction of hũu to um raises no further problems, but in the case of

the others Sampson very properly raises the question, why, if cã and razõ

became cão and razão, did lã and bom not become *lão and *bão? (As a

matter or interest, there cannot in fact be much difference acoustically between

ã and ão, witness the alternation between grã-duque and grão-duque,

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sambernardo and são-bernardo. I note also that Williams (1962, §157.2b)

interprets Nobiling’s description of lã with off-glide as being equivalent to

[l�w]. In the case of words like lãa, irmãa, Sampson (p. 62) supposes a

“sequence of two nasal vowels” which were contracted into a single nasal

vowel towards the end of the Middle Ages. (In his n. 18 he takes it to be a

general rule that a vowel in a syllable contiguous to one containing a nasal

vowel was also nasalized, though I wonder if this did not perhaps happen only

under certain limited conditions. However, in this case the fact that the nasality

was not lost, as it was in words like cheio, cheia, boa, lua, seems certainly to

point to the nasalization of the second vowel by attraction to the first.) Thus

we may safely assume that lãa, mão and bõo were still disyllabic when cã had

already passed from [kãγ] to [kãw], although we would not be likely to find

evidence of the latter in the spelling until after mão had become a

monosyllable and cão and mão thus contained identical final segments (note,

however, that you get spellings like rrazam, nam, sam, when vãao, cristão

still contain disyllables; see Nunes, 1943, pp. 506-510). Therefore this change

would never have been likely to affect lãa. Sampson also says that bõo, being

disyllabic, remained distinct from razõ, but then gets into difficulties when he

postulates development to [bõõ] as a disyllable containing a sequence of two

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nasal vowels. He wonders why [bõõ] in view of his off-glide theory, did not

become *[bõõw], and equally why it did not become *[bõw] in the same way

as [mãõ] (from earlier [mãõ] became [mãw], [m�w ], and to answer these he

suggests that the unstressed [õ] was preserved by vowel harmony under the

influence of the stressed [õ], which seems to me a legitimate assumption as

long as the word was a disyllable. (As parallels he adduces dó (not *dou) from

DǑLU, and só (not *sou) from SŌLU; but in this second case Williams (ibid.,

§126.4a) says that só is an analogical form which replaced etymological sôo

under the influence of the feminine só < soa and of the analogical pl. sós,

formed on the basis of the opposition between sing. nôvo and pl. novos.) In

answer to his first query I would say that as the nasal semi-vowel was not an

off-glide but the lingering vestige of the Latin N, originally found between the

two vowels as in *[bõwo] or *[bõw õ], it would not have been generated after

the final [õ], though we must concede that in fact it was transposed to the end

of the word, as also in lãa, mão, after the second o became nasalized, giving

[bõõw] (and this may be the reason why the word is often written boõ, with the

tilde on the second o). This leads directly to my answer to his second query,

where I would say that in fact bõo did develop as mão, and present-day bom

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stands for [bõw] (as he says was noted by Nobiling) in the same way as

mão stands for [m�w ]. But the key factor inhibiting the change from bõo to

*bão was the fact that bõo, like mão and lãa, was still a disyllable when razõ

was changing to razão, which meant that, unlike the latter, where the [õ] was

followed directly by the semi-vowel [w] and formed a diphthong which was

(as diphthongs often are) subject to change, in the case of bõo the accented [õ]

was not in a position to form a diphthong with the [w] (at the final disyllabic

stage [bõõw] it was not in contact with it, and at the earlier stage the syllable

division was [bõ-w õ]). By the time boo had reached the stage [bõw] the factors

which had changed razõ to razão were no longer operating, and so there was

no possibility of bom developing to *bão; equally, the old monosyllabic bon

/bom preserved its [õ] all along under the influence of the disyllabic forms.

We have now examined the main sources of the Portuguese nasal vowels,

and traced their course of development. We have seen how it is most

reasonable to suppose that the nasalization was accompanied from an early

period by a relaxation in the oral occlusion of the Latin N, giving rise to a nasal

semi-vowel of the kind found in Japanese and in many of the other Romance

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languages, the most significant examples for Portuguese being found in the

sister-language Spanish in pronunciations like pienso [pjejso], and salon

[salõw ], which have nasal segments exactly corresponding to Portuguese em,

om in words like penso, bom, Braz. bem and OPtg. razõ. This semi-vowel is

still heard today in final position in a word, or medially before a consonant

other than a stop; before a stop, whether in the same word or another word

closely following, this semi-vowel becomes a nasal stop assimilated to the

quality of the following stop. In the historical process of change, certain

vowels at times combined with the nasal semi-vowel to form a nasal diphthong,

while in other cases two syllables containing similar vowels merged to form

one syllable with a nasal vowel. In each case the semi-vowel remained as the

final element in the segment, to form what Nobiling first, and later Sampson,

apprehended as an off-glide. Thus today we have a situation, generally

obscured by the conventional phonetic transcription, in which words like lã

and bom constitute two morae just as much as words like mão and bem, though

the former are transcribed with single nasal vowels and the latter with

diphthongs. The process of diphthongization also occasionally gave rise to an

artificial distinction, not found in the older stages of the language, as between

grã- and grão-, sam- and são-, tambem and tão bem, or benzer and bendizer.

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* * * * *

Note. Since writing this paper I have had occasion to read Roy C. Major’s

article “Stress and Rhythm in Brazilian Portuguese” in Language, Vol. 61, No.

2, pp. 259-282. In it he says that in careful speech stressed word-final om and

em, as in bom, bem, are pronounced as [õw] and [ej], as opposed to unstressed

on, en, as in bondade, sentar, which are pronounced [õ], [e]. (Equally, in more

casual speech words like bom and bem are only pronounced with [õ] and [e].

He thus sets up a symmetrical relationship between front and back vowels

which is what we would expect in the earlier stages of the language, as

exemplified by Brazilian with its conservative pronunciation of final em, which

must have been the common pronunciation before the Lusitanian development

of the diphthong to [�j]. He also speaks of the controversy among scholars as

to whether these groups are to be considered as diphthongs made up of two

nasal vowels or as combinations of vowel plus nasal, and refers to evidence

favouring the latter view; this would seem to lend support to my thesis that the

weakened nasal stop lingered on as a nasal approximant or semi-vowel.

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References:

Badía Margarit (1951): A. Badía Margarit, Gramática Histórica Catalana,

Barcelona 1951.

Barker (1954, 1969); J.W. Barker, Teach Yourself Portuguese, London, 2nd ed.,

1954, 3rd ed., 1969.

Bec (1970): Pierre Bec, Manuel pratique de philologie romane, Vol. I, Paris,

1970.

Bec (1971): Pierre Bec, Manuel pratique de philologie romane. Vol. II, Paris,

1971.

Bourciez (1967-1): E. & J. Bourciez, Éléments de linguistique romane, 5th ed.,

Paris, 1967.

Bourciez (1967-2): E & J. Bourciez, Phonétique française, Paris, 1967.

Entwistle (1936): W.J. Entwistle, The Spanish Language, London, 1936.

García de Diego (1978): V. García de Diego, Manual de Dialectología

Española, Madrid, 3rd ed., 1978.

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Houaiss & Avery (1964): A. Houaiss & C.B. Avery, The New Appleton

Dictionary of the English and Portuguese Languages, New York, 1964.

Lausberg (1967); H. Lausberg, Romanische Sprachwissenschaft: II,

Konsonantismus, Berlin, 1967, Ⅲ, Formenlehre, Berlin, 1962.

Menéndez Pidal (1968): R. Menéndez Pidal, Manual de Gramática Histórica

Espanola, Madrid, 13th ed., 1968.

Miller (1967): R.A. Miller, The Japanese Language, Chicago & London, 1967.

Nunes (1943): J.J. Nunes, Crestomatia Arcaica, Lisbon, 3rd ed., 1943.

Nunes (1969): J.J. Nunes, Compêndio de Gramática Histórica Portuguesa,

Lisbon, 7th ed., 1969.

Rohlfs (1949): G. Rohlfs, Historische Grammatik der Italienischen Sprache,

Bern, 1949.

Sampson (1980): Rodney Sampson (ed.), Early Romance Texts, Cambridge,

1980.

Sampson (1983): Rodney Sampson, “The Origin of Portuguese -ão”, in ZRPh.,

Vol. 99, Tübingen, 1983.

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Taylor (1958.): J.L. Taylor, A Portuguese-English Dictionary, Stanford,

1958.

Velázquez (1967): M. Velázquez de la Cadena, E. Gray & J.L. Iribas, Spanish

and English Dictionary, Chicago & New York, 1967.

Williams (1962): E.B. Williams, From Latin to Portuguese, Philadelphia, 2nd

ed., 1962.

*****

This is a slightly edited version of a paper originally published in Aoyama

Keiei Ronshu, Vol.20, Nos.2-3 (Tokyo, Aoyama Gakuin University, 1985).