Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 14.djvu/226

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SPAIN


194


SPAIN


c (pronounced ts) : in modern Castilian this sound has become the lisped one th (as in "thin"), and is written c before e or i {centum, Span, ciento; civitas, civilnlem, Span, ciudnd). In Andalusia and largely in Colonial Spanish the sound is now that of a voiceless s. The L it combination q I ceased in Span- 1 h to have its u pronounced before ( and i, and the spellmg with u is enh conventional (juem Span, quien, ttc ) before unac- ented a and o the disappeared ab- lutely [qualluoT- l cim Span, cat- ice quomo[do], ^pan como, treated IS unaccented in the sentence); be- fore accented a the !( retains its value as a w, and the combination is now written C(/ (quando, '^pan cuando). To t\er\ Latin word beginning withs + a consonant Span- ish has prefixed an < {scrilii). Span, escribo).

In the medial untervocalic) position double p, t, and c (before a, o, u,) simplified (cappa, Span, capa, etc.) ; but single p, I, and c voiced to 6, d, and g {lupa, Span, loha, etc.) ; and this voicing also occurred before r {capra, Span, cabra, etc.). If i or u in hiatus (i. e., a semi-consonant) followed the single p, t, c, the voic- ing did not occur {sapiat, Span, sepa; sapui, O. Sp. sope, modern supc). Between vowels b and g have usually been kept, the former as a bilabial spirant: in more popular treatment d has disappeared (sedere, O. Sp. seer, modern scr), but there are many instances of its retention {sudare, Span, sudar, etc.). After Lat. i the V disappeared {riims-um, Span, rio), but in most other cases it remained as a bilabial spirant equal in value to originally intervocalic 6 (novus-um, Span. nuevo). As in the initial position, g disappeared be- fore e and i {regina, Span, reina) and remained before the other vowels {negare, Span, negar, etc.). While single I, n, and r remained unchanged, the double r re- mained as a very strongly-trilled sound (like initial single r) and double h and / ordinarily palatalized to the written n and II (with sounds approximate to those of ny in English "canyon" and li in "filial"). In Latin the intervocaUc s was voiceless (Enghsh s of "case"); in Spanish it voiced early to the sound of English 2, but this z unvoiced again to the sharply hissing s in modern Spanish. If double, the Lat. ss con- tinued to be so written in O. Sp., and remains a voice- less single s in modern Spanish, which tolerates no double consonantal sounds except in rare cases, those of cc and nn. Spanish (and already V. L.) developed new sibilant sounds out of intervocalic t and c + y {i.e. e or i in "hiatus"). For ty, O. Sp. had a voiced dz sound denoted by z {ratio, rationem, Span, razon) and for cy either that same sound or the corresponding voiceless one of 'ts denoted by O. Sp. f (V. L. capicia, O. Sp. cnbega) and modern z {cabeza). The Lat. in- tervocalic c followed by e or i, likewise produced the voiced dz sound, written z in O. Sp. and now written c or 2 (in the final position) with the lisped sound th {cnix, CTucem, cruces, Span, cruz, cruces).

There are a great many other medial consonant combinations. Notable are the changes of at to ch (pronounced as in English "church"; nox, noctem. Span, nuche), of 1+ consonant to u + consonant {alter.


alterum. Span, otro though X autro X outro) or to a palatalization of the consonant {mullum, Span, mucho, with ch like that in English "church"), of iy to j {cilia. Span, ceja) of ny to palatalized n (written n; cuncus-um-. Span, cuno etc.). The variations in the cases of consonant combinations containing / have not yet been properly studied. Of the final consonants usual in Latin s and n remain, the former especially as a sign of the plural of substantives and of verbal inflexion; (, d, and c were lost {amai, Span, ama; amant, aman; est, Span, es; ad. Span, a; nee. Span. ni).

It is in its phonological development that Spanish diiTerentiates itself most from the related Romance languages: in its morphological and syntactical de- velopment it is more closely akin to them and the problems that arise belong in general to comparative Romance Philology. Therefore much less attention need be devoted to them in an individual account of Spanish. As in general Romance, so in Spanish the Latin declensions are reduced practically to three, corresponding to the Latin first, second, and third; the neuter gender disappears in the noun (the Latin neuters usually figuring in the second declension as Spanish masculines) and remains only in the demon- strative pronoun {esto, eso, aquello) and the article {lo) ; for nouns and adjectives the only case and num- ber distinctions left are those corresponding to the Lat. accusative singular and accusative plural, with retentions of the nominative (vocative) and other cases in only learned formations {Dios from Deus, Carlos from Carolus) or in petrefactions [as in jueves, "Thursday" from Jovis {dies); ogano "this year" from hoc anno, etc.]. The pronoun has preserved more of the Latin cases {ego, V. L. X eo, Span, yo; ace. me, Span, me; mihi. Span, mi, etc.).

The passive and deponent voices of Latin have dis- appeared and are usually replaced by periphrases (e. g. a reflexive formation el libra se lee^liber Icgilur or by a combination of the verb "to be" or some equivalent auxiliarj- with the past participle of the main verb). The four regular conjugations of Latin have been re- duced to three, which parallel the Lat. first, second, and fourth, and practically to two, since the second and the fourth differ in only four forms. A pecuUar- ity of the language is the appearance of a number of so-called radical-changing verbs, which, reg- ular as to their tense and personal endings, show a variation between ie and ue in the accented root syl- lable and e (upon occasion i) and o (upon occasion u) in that same sylla- ble unaccented {siento, sentir, sin- tamos, etc.). There are many irregular (strong) verbs. Of the indicative tenses, the present

abides; while the future has been supplanted by a periphrasis consisting of the infinitive of the main verb + the present (or endings of the present) indicative of haber Lat. habere {a7nar + he, "to love" -f "I have", whence amare, "I shall love ). In like manner a conditional (pjist future) has been formed by adding the endings of the imperfect in- dicative of haber to the infinitive of the main verb {ainar + [habjia, whence amaiia, "1 should love ). The Lat. perfect indicative has become a simple pret- erite in ordinary use and a new perfect has been pro-


MiGCEL DE Cervantes Saavedra