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The Old Spanish Graphs ‘i’, ‘j’, ‘g’ and ‘y’ and the Develópment of Latin G ei - and J-

1988; Liverpool University Press; Volume: 65; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/1475382882000365337

1469-3550

Ralph Penny,

Phonetics and Phonology Research

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image sizeBSS Subject Index: SPAIN — LANGUAGES — SPANISH LANGUAGE & ITS HISTORY — MEDIEVAL PERIOD Notes 1. /i/ includes here the syllabic value [i] together with the glide values [j] and [j] ; /j/ indicates the voiced mid- palatal fricative; /3/ indicates the voiced pre-palatal fricative/affricate realized as [3] and [d3]. The question of whether OSp. indeed had a phoneme /}/ is discussed in section 1.1. 2. The symbols used in this study whose values may give rise to difficulty of interpretation are as follows: [i] frictionless palatal off-glide [j] frictionless palatal on-glide [J] voiced mid-palatal fricative [dj] voiced mid-palatal affricate [3] voiced pre-palatal fricative [d3] voiced pre-palatal affricate [w] labio-velar on-glide. 3. The reverse is, of course, not true: the ‘i’ of bien could not be used instead of the ‘y’ of yerua or faya, since, under such circumstances, ‘i’ would necessarily be interpreted as /3/ (see 2.4, 3.1). 4. Nuclear and post-nuclear ‘y’ was nevertheless consistent with absence of friction. 5. In this case, it is possible that ‘y’ represents survival of non-syllabic I-. 6. There were also 15 weak forms of the same verb which were spelt yerm-. 7. There were also two weak forms of the same verb which were spelt yen-. 8. This spelling always corresponds to the sense ‘ice, cold’, and never to the pronoun sequence descended from ILLI ILLU, etc., which, as we shall see, gives gelo, ielo, etc. 9. All 33 cases of yenero occur in Astr. In a random sample of six of these cases, the meaning was ‘January’. 10. Corominas and Pascual 1980- give the earliest attestation of yesso as occurring in A. de Palencia, However, Astr (26r49,26) and Lap (19r59, 65v34, 82vl2,16) show this form, which competes with gis (Astr 26r51) and gisso (Astr 42v46, 43r32,43, 176v9, 180r60). 11. A random sample of six of these cases revealed the sense ‘German(s)’ in all cases. 12. This adj. is found only following the word griego(s) and apparently means ‘Ionian’. 13. The form yuues (GEI, 244r 3: ‘en el sancto yuues de la çena’) appears to be an error for yueves. 14. Descendants of IUGU in the Alfonsine corpus include yuuero ‘unit of land-measurement?’ (cf. EEI 61v 22: ‘un yuuero seye arando con los bueyes’) and, conceivably, yuueria (cf. EE/61v 21: ‘en una yuueria de tierra de Roma’). 15. In nominal role, both yunta(s) and iunta(s) can mean ‘meeting, gathering’; in verbal role, yuntar and juntar mean ‘to gather, meet’; similarly, the adjective forms yunto/a(s), i-, junto/a(s) show the meaning ‘together, adjacent, attached’. Corominas and Pascual (1980-), s.v. junto, describe yunta as ‘rustic, perhaps dialectal’. 16. The forms with ‘y-’ occur (like the six cases of Yust[e]) only as saints’ or personal names (Santa Yusta, don Yusto, Sant Yuste, etc.). 17. The only exceptions to this statement are represented by the spellings Pelaio (1 token, vs 137 of Pelayo), Ponpeia (2 tokens, vs 4 of Ponpeya/Pompeya) and suia (1 token, vs 156 of suya). A good example of consistent graphical distinction is provided by foia and foya. Of the 12 tokens of foia examined in context (out of a total of 33 in the whole corpus) all had the meaning ‘leaf, page, lamina (of metal)’, while foya, four of whose nine appearances were examined, always meant ‘pit, trap’. (By contrast with these two forms, the seven instances of fuya examined corresponded either to the imperf. or the pres. subj. of fuir.) 18. The division made here between -CVV and -CGV types is at times arbitrary. Thus, Dios may still, at least sometimes, have been accentuated -VV; such cases have nevertheless been assigned to -CGV. By contrast, mios, etc., may well often have been stressed -CGV; such cases are here included in the type -CVV. 19. Since all tokens of -yos represented a single type (Dyos), the same word which constitutes the vast majority of tokens of -ios (Dios), it could be argued that the sample examined was skewed in such a way as to obscure a possible contrast between ‘i’ and ‘y’ when they occurred between consonant and vowel. As a check, a random selection was made of one in eight of the 206 tokens of olio and of the 29 tokens of olyo. All instances examined in context revealed the sense (olive) oil, oil (for anointing)’, that is to say, a noun with stress-pattern : CGV. No instances were revealed, under either spelling, of the pattern -CVV (pret. 3sg of oler). Evidently, the appearance of ‘i’ and ‘y’ in this position is not governed by stress-pattern (or by any other identifiable factor). 20. Includes 14,587 tokens of rey and 2,236 of ley. 21. Includes 7,995 tokens of muy. 22. It would perhaps be slightly more accurate to say that /3/ did not occur at the beginning of a phonetic word, since gelo, etc., which are essentially enclitic, had long existed. Note that the combination of gelo with a word-final consonant also introduces the phonotactic possibility C + /3/. 23. Although *yermano is unattested in the Alfonsine corpus, the remainder of these forms appear there, with the following number of tokens: yerno 77, yenero 33, yent(e) 1,837, yaze (and other stem-stressed forms of this verb) 251, yazer (and other weak forms of this verb) 429, yudgar 158, yuego 1, yunnir 5. 24. It is probable that the phonotactic constraint which in MSp. prevents the sequences *[Jw] and *[jw]— with the exception that the first can occur at morpheme boundaries, cf. hoyuelo, rayuela—also operated, or was coming into force, in OSp. 25. To which we may add one token each of yuueria and yuuero, derivatives of IUGU, which indicate units of land-measurement (see note 15). 26. Both spellings are associated with the full range of meanings ‘gather(ed), -ing, join, joined, joint’. 27. Note that the system of ‘litterae’ allows the same phoneme to be employed for more than one letter; in this case, I- and Ge,i- were probably rendered in the same way. 28. Not, of course, fully learnèd, iudio may be a modification of an earlier vernacular *yudio (see below, this section). 29. We should perhaps include here, despite its /o/, the form iouen/jouen (2 tokens). 30. On one of its appearances (Pic 15r 13), gema has the sense ‘gem’. On its six appearances in Lap, it occurs in the phrase sal gema, ‘rock salt?’ 31. See note 11. 32. For a slightly different, but also non-traditional view of ‘semi-learnèd’ terms, see Wright 1976b. 33. Arabic was probably also instrumental in introducing to Spanish the sequence C + /3/ in cases like algez; see 3.4 and note 39. 34. While acknowledging what /i/ is ‘impensable’ after a consonant (44), Ariza nevertheless envisages the possibility of such a phoneme in word-initial position (41) and even allows for a geminate [ii] as the immediate result of Ge,i in initial position! In short, despite his quotation of Navarro Tomás (1961), he fails to take into account that [i] is by nature an off-glide and must follow a syllabic nucleus. 35. Of these tokens, 111 are abstract nouns and the remainder verbs with infinitive /-3ár/. 36. Of these, a maximum of 149 tokens represent possible imperfects with the sequence VVV. 37. Almost all (262) of these tokens are imperfects with possible VVV sequence. 38. Includes 53 tokens of semeie. 39. Includes 34 tokens of (h)erege. 40. Almost half of these tokens (21) are imperfects with the possible sequence VVV. 41. All are imperfects. 42. Includes 612 tokens of fija. 43. Almost all these tokens (2,658) correspond to fijo. 44. All are cases of the imperfect riye. 45. Includes 27 imperfects. 46. Thirty-nine of these tokens are instances of oye and roye, some, at least, of which will be imperfects, some possibly accentuated VVV. 47. Twenty-three of these cases are imperfects with possible accentuation VVV. 48. Sixty-two of these 63 tokens are forms such as fuye, some of which are imperfects, capable of accentuation VVV. 49. 5,901 of these tokens are represented by Dios and adios. 50. These tokens are all cases of Dyos.