This article is about the phonology and phonetics of the Galician language .

Vowels [ edit ]

Galician has seven vowel phonemes, which are represented by five letters in writing. Similar vowels are found under stress in standard Catalan and Italian . It is likely that this 7-vowel system was even more widespread in the early stages of Romance languages .

Some characteristics of the vocalic system:

• In Galician the vocalic system is reduced to five vowels in post-tonic syllables, and to just three in final unstressed position: [ ? , ? , ? ] (which can instead be transcribed as [e?, o?, a?] ). ^[1] In some cases, vowels from the final unstressed set appear in other positions, as e.g. in the word termonuclear [?t??m?nukle?a?] , because the prefix termo- is pronounced [?t??m?] . ^{[2] [3]}
• Unstressed close-mid vowels and open-mid vowels ( /e ~ ?/ and /o ~ ?/ ) can occur in complementary distribution (e.g. ovella [o?βe??] 'sheep' / omitir [?mi?ti?] 'to omit' and pequeno [pe?ken?] 'little, small' / emitir [?mi?ti?] 'to emit'), with a few minimal pairs like botar [bo?ta?] 'to throw' vs. botar [b??ta?] 'to jump'. ^[4] In pretonic syllables, close-/open-mid vowels are kept in derived words and compounds (e.g. c [?] rd - > corda [?k??ð?] 'string' → cordeiro [k???ðej??] 'string-maker'?which contrasts with cordeiro [ko??ðej??] 'lamb'). ^[4]
• The distribution of stressed close-mid vowels (/e/, /o/) and open-mid vowels (/?/, /?/) are as follows: ^[5]
  • Vowels with graphic accents are usually open-mid, such as ven [b?ŋ], so [s??], pola [?p?l?], oso [??s??], presa [?p??s??].
  • Nouns ending in -el or -ol and their plural forms have open-mid vowels, such as papel [pa?p?l] 'paper' or caracol [ka?a?k?l] 'snail'.
  • Second-person singular and third-person present indicative forms of second conjugation verbs (-er) with the thematic vowel /e/ or /u/ have open-mid vowels, while all remaining verb forms maintain close-mid vowels:
    • bebo [?beβ?], bebes [?b?β?s?], bebe [?b?β?], beben [?b?β?ŋ]
    • como [?kom?], comes [?k?m?s?], come [?k?m?], comen [?k?m?ŋ]
  • Second-person singular and third-person present indicative forms of third conjugation verbs (-ir) with the thematic vowel /e/ or /u/ have open-mid vowels, while all remaining verb forms maintain close vowels:
    • sirvo [?s?i?β?], serves [?s???β?s?], serve [?s???β?], serven [?s???β?ŋ]
    • fuxo [?fu??], foxes [?f???s?], foxe [?f???], foxen [?f???ŋ]
  • Certain verb forms derived from irregular preterite forms have open-mid vowels:
    • preterite indicative: coubeches [kow?β?t???s?], coubemos [kow?β?m?s?], coubestes [kow?β?s?t?s?], couberon [kow?β???ŋ]
    • pluperfect: eu/el coubera [kow?β???], couberas [kow?β???s?], couberan [kow?β???ŋ]
    • preterite subjunctive: eu/el coubese [kow?β?s??], coubeses [kow?β?s??s?], coubesen [kow?β?s??ŋ]
    • future subjunctive: eu/el couber [kow?β??], couberes [kow?β???s?], coubermos [kow?β??m?s?], couberdes [kow?β??ð?s?], couberen [kow?β???ŋ]
  • The letter names e [??], efe [??f?], ele [??l?], eme [??m?], ene [??n?], ene [????], erre [??r?], ese [??s??], o [??] have open-mid vowels, while the remaining letter names have close-mid vowels.
  • Close-mid vowels:
    • verb forms of first conjugation verbs with a thematic mid vowel followed by -i- or palatal x, ch, ll, n (deitar, axexar, pechar, tellar, empenar, coxear)
    • verb forms of first conjugation verbs ending in -ear or -oar (voar)
    • verbs forms derived from the irregular preterite form of ser and ir (fomos, fora, fose, for)
    • verbs forms derived from regular preterite forms (collemos, collera, collese, coller)
    • infinitives of second conjugation verbs (coller, por)
    • the majority of words ending in -es (corunes, vigues, montanes)
    • the diphthong ou (touro, tesouro)
    • nouns ending in -edo, -ello, -eo, -eza, on, -or, -oso (medo, cortello, feo, grandeza, corazon, matador, fermoso)
• Of the seven vocalic phonemes of the tonic and pretonic syllables, only /a/ has a set of different renderings ( allophones ), forced by its context: ^[6]
  • [ a ] (short central): normal realization of the phoneme.
  • [ aː ] (long central): due to contraction, as in ra [?raː] 'frog' < raa < Latin r?na . ^[7]
  • [ ?? ] (short advanced back): when next to /ŋ, k, ?, l, w/ .
  • [ a? ] (short retracted front): before a palatal consonant.
• All dialectal forms of Galician but Ancarese, spoken in the Ancares valley in Leon , have lost the phonemic quality of mediaeval nasal vowels . Nevertheless, any vowel is nasalized in contact with a nasal consonant. ^[8]
• The vocalic system of Galician language is heavily influenced by metaphony . Regressive metaphony is produced either by a final /a/ , which tend to open medium vowels, or by a final /o/ , which can have the reverse effect. As a result, metaphony affects most notably words with gender opposition: sogro [?so???] ('father-in-law') vs. sogra [?s????] ('mother-in-law'). ^[9] On the other hand, vowel harmony , triggered by /i/ or /u/ , has had a large part in the evolution and dialectal diversification of the language.

Diphthongs

Galician language possesses a large set of falling diphthongs :

There are also a certain number of rising diphthongs, but they are not characteristic of the language and tend to be pronounced as hiatus. ^[10]

Consonants [ edit ]

Voiced plosives ( /?/ , /d/ and /b/ ) are lenited (weakened) to approximants or fricatives in all instances, except after a pause or a nasal consonant ; e.g. un gato 'a cat' is pronounced [uŋ ??at?] , whilst o gato 'the cat' is pronounced [? ??at?] .

During the modern period, Galician consonants have undergone significant sound changes that closely parallel the evolution of Spanish consonants , including the following changes that neutralized the opposition of voiced fricatives / voiceless fricatives:

• /z/ > /s/ ;
• /dz/ > /ts/ > [s] in western dialects, or [θ] in eastern and central dialects;
• /?/ > /?/ ;

For a comparison, see Differences between Spanish and Portuguese: Sibilants . Additionally, during the 17th and 18th centuries the western and central dialects of Galician developed a voiceless fricative pronunciation of /?/ (a phenomenon called gheada ). This may be glottal [h] , pharyngeal [ħ] , uvular [χ] , or velar [x] . ^[16]

The distribution of the two rhotics /r/ and /?/ closely parallels that of Spanish . Between vowels, the two contrast (e.g. mi rr a [?mir?] 'myrrh' vs. mi r a [?mi??] 'look'), but they are otherwise in complementary distribution. [ ? ] appears in the onset, except in word-initial position ( r ato ), after /l/ , /n/ , and /s/ ( hon r a , Is r ael ), where [ r ] is used.

As in Spanish, /?/ derives from historical / ? / ( yeismo ) and from syllable-initial /j/ . In some dialects, it lenites to approximant [ ?? ] in the same environments where /b, d, ?/ lenite. It may also be realized as [ ?? ] where it derives from /j/ . The realization [?] remains in select older speakers in isolated regions. ^[12]

References [ edit ]

Bibliography [ edit ]