Vulgar Latin

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Not to be confused with Latin profanity and the Vulgate, the Latin translation of
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Vulgar Latin
sermo vulgaris
Native to Roman Republic, Roman Empire
Era Antiquity; developed into Romance languages 6th to 9th centuries
Language family
Indo-European
Italic
Latino-Faliscan
Latin
Vulgar Latin
Writing system
(unwritten)
Language codes
ISO 639-3
Linguist List
lat-vul
Glottolog None
Roman Empire Trajan 117AD.png
The Roman Empire in 117 AD
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Vulgar Latin or Sermo Vulgaris ("common speech") was the nonstandard form(s) of
Latin (as opposed to classical) spoken in the Mediterranean region during and after
classical period of the Roman Empire. It is from Vulgar Latin that the Romance
languages developed; the best known are the national languages Italian, Spanish,
Portuguese, Romanian, and French. Works written in Latin during classical times and
the earlier Middle Ages used Classical Latin rather than Vulgar Latin, with very
few exceptions (most notably sections of Gaius Petronius' Satyricon). Because of
its nonstandard nature, Vulgar Latin had no official orthography. Vulgar Latin is
sometimes also called colloquial Latin,[1] or Common Romance (particularly in the
late stage). In Renaissance Latin, Vulgar Latin was called vulgare Latinum or
Latinum vulgare.[citation needed]

By its nature Vulgar Latin varied greatly by region and by time period. A few major
divisions can be seen, however. Vulgar Latin dialects began to significantly
diverge from Classical Latin during the 3rd century during the classical period of
the Roman Empire. Nevertheless up to the 4th and 5th centuries CE, the most widely
spoken dialects were still similar to and mostly mutually intelligible with
Classical Latin. With the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century,
the Gothic and Frankish rulers of western Europe created a substantially different
Germanic-influenced language, a language that was substantially different from
Classical Latin; indeed it is this one that is most often known as Proto-Romance.
[citation needed] Similarly in the Eastern Roman Empire as Latin faded as the court
language, the Vulgar Latin spoken there became heavily influenced by Greek and
Slavic and also became radically different from Classical Latin and from the proto-
Romance of Western Europe.[2][3]

Contents [hide]
1 Origin of the term
2 Sources
3 History
4 Vocabulary
5 Phonology
5.1 Evidence of changes
5.2 Consonant development
5.2.1 Loss of final consonants
5.2.2 Lenition of stops
5.2.3 Simplification of geminates
5.2.4 Loss of word-final m
5.2.5 Neutralization of /b/ and /w/
5.2.6 Consonant cluster simplification
5.3 Vowel development
5.3.1 System in Classical Latin
5.3.2 Monophthongization
5.3.3 Loss of distinctive length and near-close mergers
5.3.4 Phonologization of stress
5.3.5 Lengthening of stressed open syllables
6 Grammar
6.1 Romance articles
6.2 Loss of neuter
6.3 Loss of oblique cases
6.4 Wider use of prepositions
6.5 Pronouns
6.6 Adverbs
6.7 Verbs
6.7.1 Copula
6.8 Supine
6.9 Word order typology
7 See also
7.1 History of specific Romance languages
8 Notes
9 References
9.1 General
9.2 Transitions to Romance languages
9.2.1 To Romance in general
9.2.2 To French
9.2.3 To Italian
9.2.4 To Spanish
9.2.5 To Portuguese
9.2.6 To Occitan
9.2.7 To Sardinian
10 External links
Origin of the term[edit]
The term "common speech" (sermo vulgaris), which later became "Vulgar Latin", was
used by inhabitants of the Roman Empire. Subsequently it became a technical term
from Latin and Romance-language philology referring to the unwritten varieties of a
Latinised language spoken mainly by Italo-Celtic populations governed by the Roman
Republic and the Roman Empire.

Traces of their language appear in some inscriptions, such as graffiti or

advertisements. The educated population mainly responsible for Classical Latin
might also have spoken Vulgar Latin in certain contexts depending on their
socioeconomic background. The term was first used improperly in that sense by the
pioneers of Romance-language philology: Franois Juste Marie Raynouard (17611836)
and Friedrich Christian Diez (17941876).

In the course of his studies on the lyrics of songs written by the troubadours of
Provence, which had already been studied by Dante Alighieri and published in De
vulgari eloquentia, Raynouard noticed that the Romance languages derived in part
from lexical, morphological, and syntactic features that were Latin, but were not
preferred in Classical Latin. He hypothesized an intermediate phase and identified
it with the Romana lingua, a term that in countries speaking Romance languages
meant "nothing more or less than the vulgar speech as opposed to literary or
grammatical Latin."[4]

Diez, the principal founder of Romance-language philology, impressed by the

comparative methods of Jakob Grimm in Deutsche Grammatik, which came out in 1819
and was the first to use such methods in philology, decided to apply them to the
Romance languages and discovered Raynouard's work, Grammaire compare des langues
de l'Europe latine dans leurs rapports avec la langue des troubadours, published in
1821. Describing himself as a pupil of Raynouard, he went on to expand the concept
to all Romance languages, not just the speech of the troubadours, on a systematic
basis, thereby becoming the originator of a new field of scholarly inquiry.[5]

Diez, in his flagship work on the topic, Grammatik der romanischen Sprachen,
"Grammar of the Romance Languages," first published in 18361843 and multiple times
thereafter, after enumerating six Romance languages that he compared: Italian and
Wallachian (i.e., Romanian) (east); Spanish and Portuguese (southwest); and
Provenal and French (northwest), asserts that they had their origin in Latin, but
nicht aus dem classischen Latein, "not from classical Latin," rather aus der
rmischen Volkssprache oder Volksmundart, "from the Roman popular language or
popular dialect".[6] These terms, as he points out later in the work, are a
translation into German of Dante's vulgare latinum and Latinum vulgare, and the
Italian of Boccaccio, latino volgare.[7] These names in turn are at the end of a
tradition extending to the Roman republic.

The concepts and vocabulary from which vulgare latinum descend were known in the
classical period and are to be found amply represented in the unabridged Latin
dictionary, starting in the late Roman republic. Marcus Tullius Cicero, a prolific
writer, whose works have survived in large quantity, and who serves as a standard
of Latin, and his contemporaries in addition to recognizing the lingua Latina also
knew varieties of "speech" under the name sermo. Latin could be sermo Latinus, but
in addition was a variety known as sermo vulgaris, sermo vulgi, sermo plebeius and
sermo quotidianus. These modifiers inform post-classical readers that a
conversational Latin existed, which was used by the masses (vulgus) in daily
speaking (quotidianus) and was perceived as lower-class (plebeius).

These vocabulary items manifest no opposition to the written language. There was an
opposition to higher-class, or family Latin (good family) in sermo familiaris and
very rarely literature might be termed sermo nobilis. The supposed "sermo
classicus" is a scholarly fiction unattested in the dictionary. All kinds of sermo
were spoken only, not written. If one wanted to refer to what in post-classical
times was called classical Latin one resorted to the concept of latinitas
("latinity") or latine (adverb).

If one spoke in the lingua or sermo Latinus one merely spoke Latin, but if one
spoke latine or latinius ("more Latinish") one spoke good Latin, and formal Latin
had latinitas, the quality of good Latin, about it. After the fall of the empire
and the transformation of spoken Latin into the early Romance languages the only
representative of the Latin language was written Latin, which became known as
classicus, "classy" Latin. The original opposition was between formal or implied
good Latin and informal or Vulgar Latin. The spoken/written dichotomy is entirely
philological.

Sources[edit]
Vulgar Latin is a blanket term covering the popular dialects and sociolects of the
Latin language throughout its range, from the hypothetical prisca latinitas of
unknown or poorly remembered times in early Latium, to the language spoken around
the fall of the empire. Although making it clear that sermo vulgaris existed,
ancient writers said very little about it. Because it was not transcribed, it can
only be studied indirectly. Knowledge comes from these chief sources:[8]

Solecisms, especially in Late Latin texts.

Mention of it by ancient grammarians, including prescriptive grammar texts from the
Late Latin period condemning linguistic "errors" that represent spoken Latin.
The comparative method, which reconstructs Proto-Romance, a hypothetical vernacular
proto-language from which the Romance languages descended.
Some literary works written in a lower register of Latin provide a glimpse into the
world of Vulgar Latin in the classical period: the dialogues of the plays of
Plautus and Terence, being comedies with many characters who were slaves, and the
speech of freedmen in the Cena Trimalchionis by Petronius Arbiter.
History[edit]

An extract of the Oaths of Strasbourg, the earliest French text.

The original written Latin language (what is today referred to as Classical Latin)
was adapted from the actual spoken language of the Latins, with some minor
modifications, long before the rise of the Roman Empire. As with many languages,
over time the spoken vulgar language diverged from the written language with the
written language remaining somewhat static. During the classical period spoken
(Vulgar) Latin still remained largely common across the Empire, some minor
dialectal differences notwithstanding.

The collapse of the Western Roman Empire rapidly began to change this. The former
western provinces became increasingly isolated from the Eastern Roman Empire,
leading to a rapid divergence in the Latin spoken on either side. In the West an
even more complex transformation was occurring. A blending of cultures was
occurring between the former Roman citizens who were fluent in the proper Latin
speech (which was already substantially different from Classical Latin), and the
new Gothic rulers who, though largely Latinised, tended to speak Latin poorly,
speaking what could be considered a creole of Latin and their Germanic mother
tongue.

What emerged in Western Europe was common form of Latin which, though mostly Latin
in vocabulary (with many Germanic words introduced), was heavily influenced by
Germanic grammar and represented a radical shift away from the original Roman
language. For a few centuries this language remained relatively common across most
of Western Europe (hence the fact that Italian, Spanish, French, etc. are far more
similar to each other than to Classical Latin), though regional dialects were
already developing. As early as 722, in a face to face meeting between Pope Gregory
II, born and raised in Rome, and Saint Boniface, an Anglo-Saxon, Boniface
complained that he found Pope Gregory's Latin speech difficult to understand, a
clear sign of the transformation of Vulgar Latin in two regions of western Europe.
[9]

Soon Classical Latin and Vulgar Latin came to be viewed as distinct languages. At
the third Council of Tours in 813, priests were ordered to preach in the vernacular
language either in the rustica lingua romanica (Vulgar Latin), or in the Germanic
vernaculars since the common people could no longer understand formal Latin.
Within a generation, the Oaths of Strasbourg (842), a treaty between Charlemagne's
grandsons Charles the Bald and Louis the German, was proffered and recorded in a
language that was already distinct from Latin. Jzsef Herman states:

It seems certain that in the sixth century, and quite likely into the early parts
of the seventh century, people in the main Romanized areas could still largely
understand the biblical and liturgical texts and the commentaries (of greater or
lesser simplicity) that formed part of the rites and of religious practice, and
that even later, throughout the seventh century, saints' lives written in Latin
could be read aloud to the congregations with an expectation that they would be
understood. We can also deduce however, that in Gaul, from the central part of the
eighth century onwards, many people, including several of the clerics, were not
able to understand even the most straightforward religious texts.[10]

By the end of the first millennium, dialectization pressures that had begun long
before had brought about sufficient divergence that easy mutual intelligibility of
the colloquial spoken language across Romance Europe had attenuated diatopically,
i.e. the more so the more geographically distant the origins of the speakers, to
the point that numerous Romance varieties were identifiable as distinct. With the
evolved Latin vernaculars viewed as different languages with local norms, in time
specific orthographies would be developed for some. Since all modern Romance
varieties are continuations of this evolution, Vulgar Latin is not extinct but
survives in variously evolved forms as today's Romance languages and dialects.
Unlike the case of English, for which traditional historical labeling suggests,
somewhat misleadingly, continuity of a single language (Old English > Middle
English > Modern English), in Romance-speaking Europe recognition of the common
origin of Romance varieties was replaced conceptually and terminologically by
multiple labels recognizing and implicitly accentuating local differences in
linguistic features. In time, some Romance languages evolved more than others. In
terms of phonological structures, for example, a clear hierarchy from conservative
to innovative is found in comparing Italian, Spanish and French (e.g. Latin amica >
Italian amica, Spanish amiga, French amie; Latin caput > Italian capo, Spanish
cabo, French chef).

The Oaths of Strasbourg offer indications of the state of Gallo-Romance toward the
middle of the 9th century. While the language cannot be said with any degree of
certainty to be Old French in the sense of the linear precursor to today's standard
French, the abundance of Gallo-Romance features provides a glimpse of some
particulars of Vulgar Latin's evolution on French soil.

Extract of the Romance part of the Oaths of Strasbourg (842)

Gallo-Romance, AD 842 [11] Vulgar Latin of Paris, circa 5th c. AD, for
comparison[12] English Translation
"Pro Deo amur et pro christian poblo et nostro commun salvament, d'ist di in avant,
in quant Deus savir et podir me dunat, si salvarai eo cist meon fradre Karlo, et in
ayudha et in cadhuna cosa si cum om per dreit son fradra salvar dift, in o quid il
mi altresi fazet. Et ab Ludher nul plaid nunquam prindrai qui meon vol cist meon
fradre Karlo in damno sit." "Por Deo amore et por chrestyano pob(o)lo et nostro
comune salvamento de esto die en avante en quanto Deos sabere et podere me donat,
sic salvarayo eo eccesto meon fradre Karlo, et en ayuda et en caduna causa, sic
quomo omo per drecto son fradre salvare devet, en o qued illi me altrosic fatsyat,
et ab Ludero nullo plag(i)do nonqua prendrayo, qui meon volo eccesto meon fradre
Karlo en damno seat." "For the love of God and for Christendom and our common
salvation, from this day onwards, as God will give me the wisdom and power, I shall
protect this brother of mine Charles, with aid or anything else, as one ought to
protect one's brother, so that he may do the same for me, and I shall never
knowingly make any covenant with Lothair that would harm this brother of mine
Charles."
Vocabulary[edit]
[icon] This section needs expansion. You can help by adding to it. (January
2015)
Main article: Vulgar Latin vocabulary
Further information: Reichenau Glosses
Vulgar Latin featured a large vocabulary of words that were productive in Romance.

Phonology[edit]
See also: Latin spelling and pronunciation and Latin regional pronunciation
Main article: Romance languages
There was no single pronunciation of Vulgar Latin, and the pronunciation of Vulgar
Latin in the various Latin-speaking areas is indistinguishable from the earlier
history of the phonology of the Romance languages. See the article on Romance
languages for more information.

Evidence of changes[edit]
Latin Wikisource has original text related to this article:
Appendix Probi
Evidence of phonological changes can be seen in the late 3rd-century Appendix
Probi, a collection of glosses prescribing correct classical Latin forms for
certain vulgar forms. These glosses describe:

a process of syncope, the loss of unstressed vowels in medial syllables ("calida

non calda");
the merger of unstressed pre-vocalic /e/ and short /i/, probably as yod /j/ ("vinea
non vinia");
the levelling of the distinction between /o/ and /u/ ("coluber non colober") and
/e/ and /i/ ("dimidius non demedius");
regularization of irregular forms ("glis non glirus");
regularization and emphasis of gendered forms ("pauper mulier non paupera mulier");
levelling of the distinction between /b/ and /v/ between vowels ("bravium non
brabium");
assimilation of plosive consonant clusters ("amycdala non amiddula");
the substitution of diminutives for unmarked words ("auris non oricla, neptis non
nepticla");
the loss of syllable-final nasals before /s/ ("mensa non mesa") or their
inappropriate insertion as a form of hypercorrection ("formosus non formunsus");
the loss of /h/, both initially ("hostiae non ostiae") and within the word ("adhuc
non aduc");
simplification of /k/ ("coqui non coci").
Many of the forms castigated in the Appendix Probi proved to be the forms accepted
in Romance; e.g., oricla (evolved from the Classical Latin marked diminutive
auricula) is the source of French oreille, Catalan orella, Spanish oreja, Italian
orecchia, Romanian ureche, Portuguese orelha, Sardinian orija 'ear', not the
prescribed auris. Development of yod from the post-nasal unstressed /e/ of vinea
enabled the palatalization of /n/ that would produce French vigne, Italian vigna,
Spanish via, Portuguese vinha, Catalan vinya, Occitan vinha, Friulan vigne, etc.,
'vineyard'.

Consonant development[edit]
See also: Romance languages Consonants
The most significant consonant changes affecting Vulgar Latin were palatalization
(except in Sardinia); lenition, including simplification of geminate consonants (in
areas north and west of the La SpeziaRimini Line, e.g. Spanish digo vs. Italian
dico 'I say', Spanish boca vs. Italian bocca 'mouth')); and loss of final
consonants.

Loss of final consonants[edit]

The loss of final consonants was already under way by the 1st century AD in some
areas. A graffito at Pompeii reads quisque ama valia, which in Classical Latin
would read quisquis amat valeat ("may whoever loves be strong/do well").[13] (The
change from valeat to valia is also an early indicator of the development of /j/
(yod), which played such an important part in the development of palatalization.)
On the other hand, this loss of final /t/ was not general. Old Spanish and Old
French preserved a reflex of final /t/ up through 1100 AD or so, and modern French
still maintains final /t/ in some liaison environments.
Lenition of stops[edit]
Areas north and west of the La SpeziaRimini Line lenited intervocalic /p, t, k/ to
/b, d, /. This phenomenon is occasionally attested during the imperial period, but
it became frequent by the 7th century. For example, in Merovingian documents,
rotatico > rodatico ("wheel tax").[14]

Simplification of geminates[edit]
Reduction of bisyllabic clusters of identical consonants to a single syllable-
initial consonant also typifies Romance north and west of La Spezia-Rimini. The
results in Italian and Spanish provide clear illustrations: siccus > Italian secco,
Spanish seco; cippus > Italian ceppo, Spanish cepo; mittere > Italian mettere,
Spanish meter.

Loss of word-final m[edit]

The loss of the final m was a process which seems to have begun by the time of the
earliest monuments of the Latin language. The epitaph of Lucius Cornelius Scipio
Barbatus, who died around 150 BC, reads taurasia cisauna samnio cepit, which in
Classical Latin would be taursiam, cisaunam, samnium cpit ("He captured Taurasia,
Cisauna, and Samnium"). This however can be explained in a different way, that the
inscription simply fails to note the nasality of the final vowels (like in the
established custom of writing cos. for consul).

Neutralization of /b/ and /w/[edit]

Confusions between b and v show that the Classical semivowel /w/, and
intervocalic /b/ partially merged to become a bilabial fricative // (Classical
semivowel /w/ became // in Vulgar Latin, while [] became an allophone of /b/ in
intervocalic position). Already by the 1st century AD, a document by one Eunus
writes iobe for iovem and dibi for divi.[15] In most of the Romance varieties, this
sound would further develop into /v/, with the notable exception of the betacist
varieties of Hispano-Romance: b and v represent the same phoneme /b/ (with
allophone []) in Modern Spanish, as well as in Galician, northern Portuguese and
the northern dialects of Catalan.

Consonant cluster simplification[edit]

In general, many clusters were simplified in Vulgar Latin. For example, /ns/ was
changed to /s/, reflecting the fact that /n/ was no longer consonantal. In some
inscriptions, mensis > mesis ("month"), or consul > cosul ("consul").[14]
Descendants of mensis include Portuguese ms, Spanish and Catalan mes, Old French
meis, Italian mese.[14] In some areas (including much of Italy), the clusters [mn],
[kt] ct, [ks] x were assimilated to the second element: [nn], [tt], [ss].[14]
Thus, some inscriptions have omnibus > onibus ("all [dative plural]"), indictione >
inditione ("indiction"), vixit > bissit ("lived").[14] Also, three-consonant
clusters usually lost the middle element. For example: emptores > imtores
("buyers") [14]

Not all areas show the same development of these clusters, however. In the East,
Italian has [kt] > [tt], as in octo > otto ("eight") or nocte > notte ("night");
while Romanian has [kt] > [pt] (opt, noapte).[14] By contrast, in the West, the [k]
was turned into [j]. In French and Portuguese, this caused the diphthongization of
the previous vowel (huit, oito; nuit, noite), while in Spanish, the [t] was
palatalized and became [t] (*oito > ocho, *noite > noche) [16]

Also, many clusters including [j] were simplified. Several of these groups seem to
have never been fully stable[clarification needed] (e.g. facunt for faciunt). This
dropping has resulted in the word parietem ("wall") turning into: Italian parete,
Romanian prete>perete, Portuguese parede, Spanish pared, or French paroi.[16]

The cluster [kw] qu was simplified to [k] in most instances. In 435, one can find
the hypercorrective spelling quisquentis for quiescentis ("of the person who rests
here"). Modern languages have followed this trend, for example Latin qui ("who")
has become Italian chi and French qui (both /ki/); while quem ("who") became quien
(/kjen/) in Spanish and quem (/kj/) in Portuguese.[16] However, [kw] has survived
in front of [a] in most areas, although not in French; hence Latin quattuor yields
Spanish cuatro (/kwatro/), Portuguese quatro (/kwatru/), and Italian quattro
(/kwattro/), but French quatre (/kat/), where the qu- spelling is purely
etymological.[16]

In Spanish, most words with consonant clusters in syllable-final position are

loanwords from Classical Latin, examples are: transporte [tanspor.te], transmitir
[tanz.mitir], instalar [ins.talar], constante [konstante], obstante [os
tante], obstruir [ostwir], perspectiva [pers.pekti.a], istmo [ist.mo]. A
syllable-final position cannot be more than one consonant (one of n, r, l, s or z)
in most (or all) dialects in colloquial speech, reflecting Vulgar Latin background.
Realizations like [traspor.te], [taz.mitir], [is.talar], [kostante], [os
tante], [ostwir], and [iz.mo] are very common, and in many cases, they are
considered acceptable even in formal speech.

Vowel development[edit]
See also: Romance languages Vowels
In general, the ten-vowel system of Classical Latin, which relied on phonemic vowel
length, was newly modelled into one in which vowel length distinctions lost
phonemic importance, and qualitative distinctions of height became more prominent.

System in Classical Latin[edit]

Classical Latin had 10 different vowel phonemes, grouped into five pairs of short-
long, , , , , . It also had four diphthongs, ae, oe,
au, eu, and the rare diphthong ui. Finally, there were also long and short y,
representing /y/, /y/ in Greek borrowings, which, however, probably came to be
pronounced /i/, /i/ even before Romance vowel changes started.

At least since the 1st century AD, short vowels (except a) differed by quality as
well as by length from their long counterparts, the short vowels being lower.[17]
[18] Thus the vowel inventory is usually reconstructed as /a a/, / e/, /
i/, / o/, / u/.

General vowel changes in most Vulgar Latin

Spelling 1st cent. 2nd cent. 3rd cent. 4th cent.
/a/ /a/
/a/
//
/e/ /e/ /e/
//
/i/ /i/
//
/o/ /o/ /o/
//
/u/ /u/
Monophthongization[edit]
Many diphthongs had begun their monophthongization very early. It is presumed that
by Republican times, ae had become // in unstressed syllables, a phenomenon that
would spread to stressed positions around the 1st century AD.[19] From the 2nd
century AD, there are instances of spellings with instead of ae.[20] oe was
always a rare diphthong in Classical Latin (in Old Latin, oinos regularly became
unus ("one")) and became /e/ during early Imperial times. Thus, one can find penam
for poenam.[19]

However, au lasted much longer. While it was monophthongized to /o/ in areas of

north and central Italy (including Rome), it was retained in most Vulgar Latin, and
it survives in modern Romanian (for example, aur < aurum). There is evidence in
French and Spanish that the monophthongization of au occurred independently in
those languages.[19]

Loss of distinctive length and near-close mergers[edit]

Length confusions seem to have begun in unstressed vowels, but they were soon
generalized.[21] In the 3rd century AD, Sacerdos (sk) mentions people's tendency to
shorten vowels at the end of a word, while some poets (like Commodian) show
inconsistencies between long and short vowels in versification.[21] However, the
loss of contrastive length caused only the merger of and while the rest of
pairs remained distinct in quality: /a/, / e/, / i/, / o/, / u/.[22]

Also, the near-close vowels // and // became more open in most varieties and
merged with /e/ and /o/ respectively.[22] As a result, the reflexes of Latin pira
"pear" and vra "true" rhyme in most Romance languages: Italian and Spanish pera,
vera. Similarly, Latin nucem "walnut" and vcem "voice" become Italian noce, voce,
Portuguese noz, voz.

There was likely some regional variation in pronunciation, as the Romanian

languages and Sardinian evolved differently.[23] In Sardinian, all corresponding
short and long vowels simply merged with each other, creating a 5-vowel system: /a,
e, i, o, u/. In Romanian, the front vowels , , , evolved like the Western
languages, but the back vowels , , , evolved as in Sardinian. A few Southern
Italian languages, such as southern Corsican, northernmost Calabrian and southern
Lucanian, behave like Sardinian with its penta-vowel system or, in case of Vegliote
(even if only partially) and western Lucanian,[24] like Romanian.

Phonologization of stress[edit]
The placement of stress did not change from Classical to Vulgar Latin, and words
continued to be stressed on the same syllable they were before. However, the loss
of distinctive length disrupted the correlation between syllable weight and stress
placement that existed in Classical Latin. Where in Classical Latin the place of
the accent was predictable from the structure of the word, it was no longer so in
Vulgar Latin. Stress had become a phonological property and could serve to
distinguish forms that were otherwise homophones.

Lengthening of stressed open syllables[edit]

After the Classical Latin vowel length distinctions were lost in favor of vowel
quality, a new system of allophonic vowel quantity appeared sometime between the
4th and 5th centuries. Around then, stressed vowels in open syllables came to be
pronounced long (but still keeping height contrasts), and all the rest became
short. For example, long venis /*v.nis/, fori /*f.ri/, cathedra /*
ka.te.dra/; but short vendo /*ven.do/, formas /*for.mas/.[25] (This allophonic
length distinction persists to this day in Italian.) However, in some regions of
Iberia and Gaul, all stressed vowels came to be pronounced long: for example, porta
/*pr.ta/, tempus /*tm.pus/.[25] In many descendents, several of the long
vowels underwent some form of diphthongization, most extensively in Old French
where five of the seven long vowels were affected by breaking.

Grammar[edit]
Romance articles[edit]
It is difficult to place the point in which the definite article, absent in Latin
but present in all Romance languages, arose, largely because the highly colloquial
speech in which it arose was seldom written down until the daughter languages had
strongly diverged; most surviving texts in early Romance show the articles fully
developed.

Definite articles evolved from demonstrative pronouns or adjectives (an analogous

development is found in many Indo-European languages, including Greek, Celtic and
Germanic); compare the fate of the Latin demonstrative adjective ille, illa,
(illud) "that", in the Romance languages, becoming French le and la, Catalan and
Spanish el and la, Portuguese o and a (elision of -l- is a common feature of
Portuguese), and Italian il, lo and la. Sardinian went its own way here also,
forming its article from ipse, ipsa "this" (su, sa); some Catalan and Occitan
dialects have articles from the same source. While most of the Romance languages
put the article before the noun, Romanian has its own way, by putting the article
after the noun, e.g. lupul ("the wolf" from *lupum illum) and omul ("the man"
*homo illum),[23] possibly a result of its membership in the Balkan sprachbund.

This demonstrative is used in a number of contexts in some early texts in ways that
suggest that the Latin demonstrative was losing its force. The Vetus Latina Bible
contains a passage Est tamen ille daemon sodalis peccati ("The devil is a companion
of sin"), in a context that suggests that the word meant little more than an
article. The need to translate sacred texts that were originally in Koine Greek,
which had a definite article, may have given Christian Latin an incentive to choose
a substitute. Aetheria uses ipse similarly: per mediam vallem ipsam ("through the
middle of the valley"), suggesting that it too was weakening in force.[13]

Another indication of the weakening of the demonstratives can be inferred from the
fact that at this time, legal and similar texts begin to swarm with praedictus,
supradictus, and so forth (all meaning, essentially, "aforesaid"), which seem to
mean little more than "this" or "that". Gregory of Tours writes, Erat autem...
beatissimus Anianus in supradicta civitate episcopus ("Blessed Anianus was bishop
in that city.") The original Latin demonstrative adjectives were no longer felt to
be strong or specific enough.[13]

In less formal speech, reconstructed forms suggest that the inherited Latin
demonstratives were made more forceful by being compounded with ecce (originally an
interjection: "behold!"), which also spawned Italian ecco through eccum, a
contracted form of ecce eum. This is the origin of Old French cil (*ecce ille),
cist (*ecce iste) and ici (*ecce hic); Italian questo (*eccum istum), quello
(*eccum illum) and (now mainly Tuscan) codesto (*eccum tibi istum), as well as qui
(*eccu hic), qua (*eccum hac); Spanish aquel and Portuguese aquele (*eccum ille);
Spanish ac and Portuguese c (*eccum hac); Spanish aqu and Portuguese aqui
(*eccum hic); Portuguese acol (*eccum illac) and aqum (*eccum inde); Romanian
acest (*ecce iste) and acela (*ecce ille), and many other forms.

On the other hand, even in the Oaths of Strasbourg, no demonstrative appears even
in places where one would clearly be called for in all the later languages (pro
christian poblo "for the Christian people"). Using the demonstratives as articles
may have still been considered overly informal for a royal oath in the 9th century.
Considerable variation exists in all of the Romance vernaculars as to their actual
use: in Romanian, the articles are suffixed to the noun (or an adjective preceding
it), as in other members of the Balkan sprachbund and the North Germanic languages.

The numeral unus, una (one) supplies the indefinite article in all cases (again,
this is a common semantic development across Europe). This is anticipated in
Classical Latin; Cicero writes cum uno gladiatore nequissimo ("with a most immoral
gladiator"). This suggests that unus was beginning to supplant quidam in the
meaning of "a certain" or "some" by the 1st century BC.[dubious discuss]

Loss of neuter[edit]
First and second adjectival declension paradigm in Classical Latin. E.g., altus
("tall")
singular plural
masculine neuter feminine masculine neuter feminine
nominative altus altum alta alt alta altae
accusative altum altam alts alta alts
dative alt altae alts
ablative alt alt alts
genitive alt altae altrum altrum

The genders
The three grammatical genders of Classical Latin were replaced by a two-gender
system in most Romance languages.

The neuter gender of classical Latin was in most cases identical with the masculine
both syntactically and morphologically. The confusion starts already in Pompeian
graffiti, e.g., cadaver mortuus for cadaver mortuum ("dead body"), and hoc locum
for hunc locum ("this place"). The morphological confusion shows primarily in the
adoption of the nominative ending -us (- after -r) in the o-declension.

In Petronius' work, one can find balneus for balneum ("bath"), fatus for fatum
("fate"), caelus for caelum ("heaven"), amphitheater for amphitheatrum
("amphitheatre"), vinus for vinum ("wine"), and conversely, thesaurum for thesaurus
("treasure"). Most of these forms occur in the speech of one man: Trimalchion, an
uneducated, Greek (i.e., foreign) freedman.

In modern Romance languages, the nominative s-ending has been abandoned, and all
substantives of the o-declension have an ending derived from -um: -u, -o, or -.
E.g., masculine murum ("wall"), and neuter caelum ("sky") have evolved to: Italian
muro, cielo; Portuguese muro, cu; Spanish muro, cielo ', Catalan mur,cel; Romanian
mur, cieru>cer; ; French mur, ciel. However, Old French still had -s in the
nominative and - in the accusative in both words: murs, ciels [nominative] mur,
ciel [oblique].[26]

For some neuter nouns of the third declension, the oblique stem became the
productive; for others, the nominative/accusative form, which was identical in
Classical Latin. Evidence suggests that the neuter gender was under pressure well
back into the imperial period. French (le) lait, Catalan (la) llet, Spanish (la)
leche, Portuguese (o) leite, Italian language (il) latte, Leonese (el) lleche and
Romanian lapte(le) ("milk"), all derive from the non-standard but attested Latin
nominative/accusative neuter lacte or accusative masculine lactem.

Note also that in Spanish the word became feminine, while in French, Portuguese and
Italian it became masculine (in Romanian it remained neuter, lapte/lpturi). Other
neuter forms, however, were preserved in Romance; Catalan and French nom, Leonese,
Portuguese and Italian nome, Romanian nume ("name") all preserve the Latin
nominative/accusative nomen, rather than the oblique stem form *nominem (which
nevertheless produced Spanish nombre).[23]

Typical Italian endings

Nouns Adjectives and determiners
singular plural singular plural
masculine giardino giardini buono buoni
feminine donna donne buona buone
neuter uovo uova buono buone
Most neuter nouns had plural forms ending in -A or -IA; some of these were
reanalysed as feminine singulars, such as gaudium ("joy"), plural gaudia; the
plural form lies at the root of the French feminine singular (la) joie, as well as
of Catalan and Occitan (la) joia (Italian la gioia is a borrowing from French); the
same for lignum ("wood stick"), plural ligna, that originated the Catalan feminine
singular noun (la) llenya, and Spanish (la) lea. Some Romance languages still have
a special form derived from the ancient neuter plural which is treated
grammatically as feminine: e.g., BRACCHIUM : BRACCHIA "arm(s)" Italian (il)
braccio : (le) braccia, Romanian bra(ul) : brae(le). Cf. also Merovingian Latin
ipsa animalia aliquas mortas fuerant.
Alternations in Italian heteroclitic nouns such as l'uovo fresco ("the fresh
egg") / le uova fresche ("the fresh eggs") are usually analysed as masculine in the
singular and feminine in the plural, with an irregular plural in -a. However, it is
also consistent with their historical development to say that uovo is simply a
regular neuter noun (ovum, plural ova) and that the characteristic ending for words
agreeing with these nouns is -o in the singular and -a in the plural. Thus, a
relict neuter gender can arguably be said to persist in Italian and Romanian.

In Portuguese, traces of the neuter plural can be found in collective formations

and words meant to inform a bigger size or sturdiness. Thus, one can use ovo/ovos
("egg/eggs") and ova/ovas ("roe", "a collection of eggs"), bordo/bordos
("section(s) of an edge") and borda/bordas ("edge/edges"), saco/sacos ("bag/bags")
and saca/sacas ("sack/sacks"), manto/mantos ("cloak/cloaks") and manta/mantas
("blanket/blankets"). Other times, it resulted in words whose gender may be changed
more or less arbitrarily, like fruto/fruta ("fruit"), caldo/calda (broth"), etc.

These formations were especially common when they could be used to avoid irregular
forms. In Latin, the names of trees were usually feminine, but many were declined
in the second declension paradigm, which was dominated by masculine or neuter
nouns. Latin pirus ("pear tree"), a feminine noun with a masculine-looking ending,
became masculine in Italian (il) pero and Romanian pr(ul); in French and Spanish
it was replaced by the masculine derivations (le) poirier, (el) peral; and in
Portuguese and Catalan by the feminine derivations (a) pereira, (la) perera.

As usual, irregularities persisted longest in frequently used forms. From the

fourth declension noun manus ("hand"), another feminine noun with the ending -us,
Italian and Spanish derived (la) mano, Romanian mnu>mna pl (reg.)mnule/mnuri,
Catalan (la) m, and Portuguese (a) mo, which preserve the feminine gender along
with the masculine appearance.

Except for the Italian and Romanian heteroclitic nouns, other major Romance
languages have no trace of neuter nouns, but still have neuter pronouns. French
celui-ci / celle-ci / ceci ("this"), Spanish ste / sta / esto ("this"), Italian:
gli / le / ci ("to him" /"to her" / "to it"), Catalan: ho, a, aix, all ("it" /
this / this-that / that over there); Portuguese: todo / toda / tudo ("all of him" /
"all of her" / "all of it").

In Spanish, a three-way contrast is also made with the definite articles el, la,
and lo. The last is used with nouns denoting abstract categories: lo bueno,
literally "that which is good", from bueno: good.

Loss of oblique cases[edit]

The Vulgar Latin vowel shifts caused the merger of several case endings in the
nominal and adjectival declensions.[27] Some of the causes include: the loss of
final m, the merger of with , and the merger of with (see tables).[27] Thus,
by the 5th century, the number of case contrasts had been drastically reduced.[27]

Evolution of a 1st declension noun:

caepa/cpa ("onion") (feminine singular)
Classical
(c. 1st century) Vulgar[27]
(c. 5th cent.) Modern
Romanian
nominative caepa, cpa *cpa ceap
accusative caepam, cpam
ablative caep, cp
dative caepae, cpae *cpe cepe
genitive
Evolution of a 2nd declension noun:
mrus ("wall") (masculine singular)
Classical
(c. 1st cent.) Vulgar[27]
(c. 5th cent.) Old French
(c. 11th cent.)
nominative mrus *mros murs
accusative mrum *mru mur
ablative mr *mro
dative
genitive mr *mri
There also seems to be a marked tendency to confuse different forms even when they
have not become homophonous (like in the generally more distinct plurals), which
indicates nominal declension was not only shaped by phonetic mergers, but also by
structural factors.[27] As a result of the untenability of the noun case system
after these phonetic changes, Vulgar Latin shifted from a markedly synthetic
language to a more analytic one.

The genitive case died out around the 3rd century AD, according to Meyer-Lbke, and
began to be replaced by de + noun as early as the 2nd century BC[citation needed].
Exceptions of remaining genitive forms are some pronouns, many fossilized
combinations like sayings, some proper names, and certain terms related to the
church. For example, French jeudi ("Thursday") < Old French juesdi < Vulgar Latin
jovis dis; Spanish es menester ("it is necessary") < est ministeri; terms like
angelorum, paganorum; and Italian terremoto ("earthquake") < terrae motu as well as
names like Paoli, Pieri.[28]

The dative case lasted longer than the genitive, even though Plautus, in the 2nd
century BC, already shows some instances of substitution by the construction ad +
accusative. For example, ad carnuficem dabo.[28][29]

The accusative case developed as a prepositional case, displacing many instances of

the ablative.[28] Towards the end of the imperial period, the accusative came to be
used more and more as a general oblique case. [30]

Despite increasing case mergers, nominative and accusative forms seem to have
remained distinct for much longer, since they are rarely confused in inscriptions.
[30] Even though Gaulish texts from the 7th century rarely confuse both forms, it
is believed that both cases began to merge in Africa by the end of the empire, and
a bit later in parts of Italy and Iberia.[30] Nowadays, Romanian maintains a two-
case system, while Old French and Old Occitan had a two-case subject-oblique
system.

This Old French system was based largely on whether or not the Latin case ending
contained an "s" or not, with the "s" being retained but all vowels in the ending
being lost (as with veisin below). But since this meant that it was easy to confuse
the singular nominative with the plural oblique, and the plural nominative with the
singular oblique, along with the final "s" becoming silent, this case system
ultimately collapsed as well, and French adopted one case (usually the oblique) for
all purposes, leaving the Romanian the only one to survive to the present day.

Evolution of a masculine noun

in Old French: veisin ("neighbor").
(definite article in parentheses).
Classical Latin
(1st cent.) Old French
(11th cent.)
singular nominative vcnus (li) veisins
accusative vcnum (le) veisin
genitive vcn
dative vcn
ablative
plural nominative vcn (li) veisin
accusative vcns (les) veisins
genitive vcnrum
dative vcns
ablative
Wider use of prepositions[edit]
Loss of a productive noun case system meant that the syntactic purposes it formerly
served now had to be performed by prepositions and other paraphrases. These
particles increased in number, and many new ones were formed by compounding old
ones. The descendant Romance languages are full of grammatical particles such as
Spanish donde, "where", from Latin de + unde, or French ds, "since", from de + ex,
while the equivalent Spanish and Portuguese desde is de + ex + de. Spanish despus
and Portuguese depois, "after", represent de + ex + post.

Some of these new compounds appear in literary texts during the late empire; French
dehors, Spanish de fuera and Portuguese de fora ("outside") all represent de +
foris (Romanian afar ad + foris), and we find Jerome writing stulti, nonne qui
fecit, quod de foris est, etiam id, quod de intus est fecit? (Luke 11.40: "ye
fools, did not he, that made which is without, make that which is within also?").
In some cases, compounds were created by combining a large number of particles,
such as the Romanian adineauri ("just recently") from ad + de + in + illa + hora.
[31]

As Latin was losing its case system, prepositions started to move in to fill the
void. In colloquial Latin, the preposition ad followed by the accusative was
sometimes used as a substitute for the dative case.

Classical Latin:

Marcus patr librum dat. "Marcus is giving [his] father [a/the] book."
Vulgar Latin:

*Marco da libru a patre. "Marcus is giving [a/the] book to [his] father."

Just as in the disappearing dative case, colloquial Latin sometimes replaced the
disappearing genitive case with the preposition de followed by the ablative.

Classical Latin:

Marcus mihi librum patris dat. "Marcus is giving me [his] father's book.
Vulgar Latin:

*Marco mi da libru de patre. "Marcus is giving me [the] book of [his] father."

Pronouns[edit]
Unlike in the nominal and adjectival inflections, pronouns kept great part of the
case distinctions. However, many changes happened. For example, the // of ego was
lost by the end of the empire, and eo appears in manuscripts from the 6th century.
[which?][32]

Reconstructed pronominal system of Vulgar Latin[32]

1st person 2nd person 3rd person
singular plural singular plural singular plural
Nominative *o *ns *tu *vs
Dative *mi *nbe(s) *ti, *tbe *vbe(s) *si, *sbe *si, *sbe
Accusative *m *ns *t *vs *s *s
Adverbs[edit]
Classical Latin had a number of different suffixes that made adverbs from
adjectives: carus, "dear", formed care, "dearly"; acriter, "fiercely", from acer;
crebro, "often", from creber. All of these derivational suffixes were lost in
Vulgar Latin, where adverbs were invariably formed by a feminine ablative form
modifying mente, which was originally the ablative of mens, and so meant "with
a ... mind". So velox ("quick") instead of velociter ("quickly") gave veloci mente
(originally "with a quick mind", "quick-mindedly") This explains the widespread
rule for forming adverbs in many Romance languages: add the suffix -ment(e) to the
feminine form of the adjective. The development illustrates a textbook case of
grammaticalization in which an autonomous form, the noun meaning 'mind', while
still in free lexical use in e.g. Italian venire in mente 'come to mind', becomes a
productive suffix for forming adverbs in Romance such as Italian chiaramente,
Spanish claramente 'clearly', with both its source and its meaning opaque in that
usage other than as adverb formant.

Verbs[edit]

The Cantar de Mio Cid (Song of my Cid) is the earliest Spanish text
Main article: Romance verbs
See also: Romance languages Verbal morphology
In general, the verbal system in the Romance languages changed less from Classical
Latin than did the nominal system.

The four conjugational classes generally survived. The second and third
conjugations already had identical imperfect tense forms in Latin, and also shared
a common present participle. Because of the merging of short i with long in most
of Vulgar Latin, these two conjugations grew even closer together. Several of the
most frequently-used forms became indistinguishable, while others became
distinguished only by stress placement:

Infinitive 1st sing. 2nd sing. 3rd sing. 1st plur. 2nd plur. 3rd plur.
sing. imperative
Second conjugation (Classical) -re -e -s -et -mus -tis -ent -
Second conjugation (Vulgar) *-re *-(j)o *-es *-e(t) *-mos *-tes
*-en(t) *-e
Third conjugation (Vulgar) *-ere *-o *-emos *-etes *-on(t)
Third conjugation (Classical) -ere - -is -it -imus -itis -unt -e
These two conjugations came to be conflated in many of the Romance languages, often
by merging them into a single class while taking endings from each of the original
two conjugations. Which endings survived was different for each language, although
most tended to favour second conjugation endings over the third conjugation.
Spanish, for example, mostly eliminated the third conjugation forms in favour of
second conjugation forms.

French and Catalan did the same, but tended to generalise the third conjugation
infinitive instead. Catalan in particular almost completely eliminated the second
conjugation ending over time, reducing it to a small relic class. In Italian, the
two infinitive endings remained separate (but spelled identically), while the
conjugations merged in most other respects much as in the other languages. However,
the third-conjugation third-person plural present ending survived in favour of the
second conjugation version, and was even extended to the fourth conjugation.
Romanian also maintained the distinction between the second and third conjugation
endings.

In the perfect, many languages generalized the -aui ending most frequently found in
the first conjugation. This led to an unusual development; phonetically, the ending
was treated as the diphthong /au/ rather than containing a semivowel /awi/, and in
other cases the /w/ sound was simply dropped. We know this because it did not
participate in the sound shift from /w/ to //. Thus Latin amaui, amauit ("I loved;
he/she loved") in many areas became proto-Romance *amai and *amaut, yielding for
example Portuguese amei, amou. This suggests that in the spoken language, these
changes in conjugation preceded the loss of /w/.[23]

Another major systemic change was to the future tense, remodelled in Vulgar Latin
with auxiliary verbs. A new future was originally formed with the auxiliary verb
habere, *amare habeo, literally "to love I have" (cf. English "I have to love",
which has shades of a future meaning). This was contracted into a new future suffix
in Western Romance forms, which can be seen in the following modern examples of "I
will love":

French: j'aimerai (je + aimer + ai) aimer ["to love"] + ai ["I have"].
Portuguese and Galician: amarei (amar + [h]ei) amar ["to love"] + hei ["I have"]
Spanish and Catalan: amar (amar + [h]e) amar ["to love"] + he ["I have"].
Italian: amer (amar + [h]o) amare ["to love"] + ho ["I have"].
A periphrastic construction of the form 'to have to' (late Latin habere ad) used as
future is characteristic of Sardinian:

App'a istre < appo a istre 'I will stay'

App'a nrrere < appo a nrrer 'I will say'
An innovative conditional (distinct from the subjunctive) also developed in the
same way (infinitive + conjugated form of habere). The fact that the future and
conditional endings were originally independent words is still evident in literary
Portuguese, which in these tenses allows clitic object pronouns to be incorporated
between the root of the verb and its ending: "I will love" (eu) amarei, but "I will
love you" amar-te-ei, from amar + te ["you"] + (eu) hei = amar + te + [h]ei = amar-
te-ei.

In Spanish, Italian and Portuguese, personal pronouns can still be omitted from
verb phrases as in Latin, as the endings are still distinct enough to convey that
information: venio > Sp vengo ("I come"). In French, however, all the endings are
typically homophonous except the first and second person (and occasionally also
third person) plural, so the pronouns are always used (je viens) except in the
imperative.

Contrary to the millennia-long continuity of much of the active verb system, which
has now survived 6000 years of known evolution, the synthetic passive voice was
utterly lost in Romance, being replaced with periphrastic verb formscomposed of
the verb "to be" plus a passive participleor impersonal reflexive formscomposed
of a verb and a passivizing pronoun.

Apart from the grammatical and phonetic developments there were many cases of verbs
merging as complex subtleties in Latin were reduced to simplified verbs in Romance.
A classic example of this are the verbs expressing the concept "to go". Consider
three particular verbs in Classical Latin expressing concepts of "going": ire,
vadere, and ambitare. In Spanish and Portuguese ire and vadere merged into the verb
ir, which derives some conjugated forms from ire and some from vadere. andar was
maintained as a separate verb derived from ambitare.

Italian instead merged vadere and ambitare into the verb andare. At the extreme
French merged three Latin verbs with, for example, the present tense deriving from
vadere and another verb ambulare (or something like it) and the future tense
deriving from ire. Similarly the Romance distinction between the Romance verbs for
"to be", essere and stare, was lost in French as these merged into the verb tre.
In Italian, the verb essere inherited both Romance meanings of "being essentially"
and "being temporarily of the quality of", while stare specialized into a verb
denoting location or dwelling, or state of health.

Copula[edit]
Main article: Romance copula
The copula (that is, the verb signifying "to be") of Classical Latin was esse. This
evolved to *essere in Vulgar Latin by attaching the common infinitive suffix -re to
the classical infinitive; this produced Italian essere and French tre through
Proto-Gallo-Romance *essre and Old French estre as well as Spanish and Portuguese
ser (Romanian a fi derives from fire, which means "to become").

In Vulgar Latin a second copula developed utilizing the verb stare, which
originally meant (and is cognate with) "to stand", to denote a more temporary
meaning. That is, *essere signified the essence, while stare signified the state.
Stare evolved to Spanish and Portuguese estar and Old French ester (both through
*estare), while Italian and Romanian retained the original form.

The semantic shift that underlies this evolution is more or less as follows: A
speaker of Classical Latin might have said: vir est in foro, meaning "the man is
in/at the marketplace". The same sentence in Vulgar Latin could have been *(h)omo
stat in foro, "the man stands in/at the marketplace", replacing the est (from esse)
with stat (from stare), because "standing" was what was perceived as what the man
was actually doing.

The use of stare in this case was still semantically transparent assuming that it
meant "to stand", but soon the shift from esse to stare became more widespread. In
the Iberian peninsula esse ended up only denoting natural qualities that would not
change, while stare was applied to transient qualities and location. In Italian,
stare is used mainly for location, transitory state of health (sta male 's/he is
ill' but gracile 's/he is puny') and, as in Spanish, for the eminently transient
quality implied in a verb's progressive form, such as sto scrivendo to express 'I
am writing'.

The historical development of the stare + gerund progressive in those Romance

languages that have it seems to have been a passage from a usage such as sto
pensando 'I stand/stay (here) thinking', in which the stare form carries the full
semantic load of 'stand, stay' to grammaticalization of the construction as
expression of progressive aspect. The process of reanalysis that took place over
time bleached the semantics of stare so that when used in combination with the
gerund the form became solely a grammatical marker of subject and tense (e.g. sto =
subject first person singular, present; stavo = subject first person singular,
past), no longer a lexical verb with the semantics of 'stand' (not unlike the
auxiliary in compound tenses that once meant 'have, possess', but is now
semantically empty: j'ai crit, ho scritto, he escrito, etc.). Whereas sto
scappando would once have been semantically strange at best (?'I stay escaping'),
once grammaticalization was achieved, collocation with a verb of inherent mobility
was no longer contradictory, and sto scappando could and did become the normal way
to express 'I am escaping'. (Although it might be objected that in sentences like
Spanish la catedral est en la ciudad, "the cathedral is in the city" this is also
unlikely to change, but all locations are expressed through estar in Spanish, as
this usage originally conveyed the sense of "the cathedral stands in the city").

Supine[edit]
[icon] This section is empty. You can help by adding to it. (December 2016)
Word order typology[edit]
Classical Latin in most cases adopted an SOV word order in ordinary prose, however
other word orders were allowed, such as in poetry, due to its inflectional nature.
However, word order in the modern Romance languages generally adopted a standard
SVO word order. This change may have been attributed from the Germanic peoples' in
the late Imperial period, since they spoke in the SVO word order.[citation needed]
Fragments of SOV word order still survive through object pronouns (te amo - "I love
you").

See also[edit]
Oaths of Strasbourg
Romance copula
Romance languages
Veronese Riddle
Proto-Romanian
Daco-Roman
Thraco-Roman
History of specific Romance languages[edit]
Sicilian
Catalan phonology
History of French
History of Italian
History of Portuguese
History of the Spanish language
Latin to Romanian sound changes
Old French
Notes[edit]
Jump up ^ Posner, Rebecca (1996). The Romance Languages. Cambridge, New York:
Cambridge University Press. p. 98.
Jump up ^ Posner, Rebecca; Sala, Marius. "Vulgar Latin". Encyclopedia Britannica.
Retrieved 20 Jun 2017.
Jump up ^ Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association.
American Philological Association: 8-9. 1870 https://books.google.com/books?
id=oOY5AQAAMAAJ. Missing or empty |title= (help)
Jump up ^ Meyer (1906), p.239.
Jump up ^ Meyer (1906), pp. 2445.
Jump up ^ Diez (1882), p. 1.
Jump up ^ Diez (1882), p. 63.
Jump up ^ Grandigent (1907), p.5.
Jump up ^ Mann, Horace, The Lives of the Popes in the Early Middle Ages, Vol. I:
The Popes Under the Lombard Rule, Part 2, 657795 (1903), pg. 158
Jump up ^ Herman (2000), p.114.
Jump up ^ Rickard, Peter (April 27, 1989). A History of the French language.
London: Routledge. pp. 2122. ISBN 041510887X.
Jump up ^ "Les Serments de Strasbourg". Retrieved February 20, 2016.
^ Jump up to: a b c Harrington et al. (1997).
^ Jump up to: a b c d e f g Herman 2000, p. 47.
Jump up ^ Horrocks, Geoffrey and James Clackson (2007). The Blackwell History of
the Latin Language. Malden: Blackwell Publishing. ISBN 978-1-4051-6209-8.
^ Jump up to: a b c d Herman 2000, p. 48.
Jump up ^ Allen (2003) states: "There appears to have been no great difference in
quality between long and short a, but in the case of the close and mid vowels (i
and u, e and o) the long appear to have been appreciably closer than the short." He
then goes on to the historical development, quotations from various authors (from
around the 2nd century AD), and evidence from older inscriptions in which "e"
stands for normally short i, "i" for long e, etc.
Jump up ^ Grandgent & Moll 1991, p. 11.
^ Jump up to: a b c Palmer 1954, p. 157.
Jump up ^ Grandgent & Moll 1991, p. 118.
^ Jump up to: a b Herman 2000, p. 28-29.
^ Jump up to: a b Palmer 1954, p. 156.
^ Jump up to: a b c d Vincent (1990).
Jump up ^ Michele Loporcaro, "Phonological Processes", The Cambridge History of the
Romance Languages: Structures, vol. 1 (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2011), 112-4.
^ Jump up to: a b Grandgent & Moll 1991, p. 125.
Jump up ^ In a few isolated masculine nouns, the s has been either preserved or
reinstated in the modern languages, for example FILIUS ("son") > French fils, DEUS
("god") > Spanish dios and Portuguese deus, and particularly in proper names:
Spanish Carlos, Marcos, in the conservative orthography of French Jacques, Charles,
Jules, etc. (Menndez Pidal 1968, p. 208; Survivances du cas sujet)
^ Jump up to: a b c d e f Herman 2000, p. 52.
^ Jump up to: a b c Grandgent & Moll 1991, p. 82.
Jump up ^ Captivi, 1019.
^ Jump up to: a b c Herman 2000, p. 53.
Jump up ^ Romanian Explanatory Dictionary (DEXOnline.ro)
^ Jump up to: a b Grandgent & Moll 1991, p. 238.
References[edit]
General[edit]
Allen, W. Sidney (2003). Vox Latina a Guide to the Pronunciation of Classical
Latin (2nd ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-37936-9.
Boyd-Bowman, Peter (1980). From Latin to Romance in Sound Charts. Washington DC:
Georgetown University Press.
Diez, Friedrich (1882). Grammatik der romanischen Sprachen (in German) (5 Auflage
ed.). Bonn: E. Weber.
Grandgent, C.H. (1907). An Introduction to Vulgar Latin. Boston: D.C. Heath.
Grandgent, Charles Hall (1882). Introduccin al latn vulgar (in Spanish) (Spanish
translation by Francisco de B. Moll ed.). Consejo Superior de Investigaciones
Cientficas.
Harrington, K. P.; Pucci, J.; Elliott, A. G. (1997). Medieval Latin (2nd ed.).
University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0-226-31712-9.
Herman, Jzsef; Wright, Roger (Translator) (2000). Vulgar Latin. University Park:
Pennsylvania State University Press. ISBN 0-271-02001-6.
Lloyd, Paul M. (1979). "On the Definition of "Vulgar Latin": The Eternal Return".
Neuphilologische Mitteilungen. 80 (2): 110122. JSTOR 43343254.
doi:10.2307/43343254.
Meyer, Paul (1906). "Beginnings and Progress of Romance Philology". In Rogers,
Howard J. Congress of Arts and Sciences: Universal Exposition, St. Louis, 1904.
Volume III. Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin and Company. pp. 237255.
Palmer, L. R. (1988) [1954]. The Latin Language. University of Oklahoma. ISBN 0-
8061-2136-X.
Pulgram, Ernst (1950). "Spoken and Written Latin". Language. 26 (4): 458466. JSTOR
410397. doi:10.2307/410397.
Sihler, A. L. (1995). New Comparative Grammar of Greek and Latin. Oxford: Oxford
University Press. ISBN 0-19-508345-8.
Tucker, T. G. (1985) [1931]. Etymological Dictionary of Latin. Ares Publishers.
ISBN 0-89005-172-0.
Vnnen, Veikko (1981). Introduction au latin vulgaire. Troisime dition revue et
augmente. Paris: Klincksieck. ISBN 2-252-02360-0.
Vincent, Nigel (1990). "Latin". In Harris, M.; Vincent, N. The Romance Languages.
Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-520829-3.
von Wartburg, Walther; Chambon, Jean-Pierre (1928). Franzsisches Etymologisches
Wrterbuch: eine Darstellung des galloromanischen Sprachschatzes (in German and
French). Bonn: F. Klopp.
Wright, Roger (1982). Late Latin and Early Romance in Spain and Carolingian France.
Liverpool: Francis Cairns.
Transitions to Romance languages[edit]
To Romance in general[edit]
Banniard, Michel (1997). Du latin aux langues romanes. Paris: Nathan.
Bonfante, Giuliano (1999). The origin of the Romance languages: Stages in the
development of Latin. Heidelberg: Carl Winter.
Ledgeway, Adam; Maiden, Martin (eds.) (2016). The Oxford Guide to the Romance
Languages. Part 1: The Making of the Romance Languages. Oxford: Oxford University
Press.
Maiden, Martin; Smith, John Charles; Ledgeway, Adam (eds.) (2013). The Cambridge
History of the Romance Languages. Volume II: Contexts. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press. (esp. parts 1 & 2, Latin and the Making of the Romance Languages;
The Transition from Latin to the Romance Languages)
Wright, Roger (1982). Late Latin and Early Romance in Spain and Carolingian France.
Liverpool: Francis Cairns.
Wright, Roger (ed.) (1991). Latin and the Romance Languages in the Early Middle
ages. London/New York: Routledge.
To French[edit]
Ayres-Bennett, Wendy (1995). A History of the French Language through Texts.
London/New York: Routledge.
Kibler, William W. (1984). An Introduction to Old French. New York: Modern Language
Association of America.
Lodge, R. Anthony (1993). French: From Dialect to Standard. London/New York:
Routledge.
Pope, Mildred K. (1934). From Latin to Modern French with Especial Consideration of
Anglo-Norman Phonology and Morphology. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
Price, Glanville (1998). The French language: present and past (Revised ed.).
London: Grant and Cutler.
To Italian[edit]
Maiden, Martin (1996). A Linguistic History of Italian. New York: Longman.
To Spanish[edit]
Lloyd, Paul M. (1987). From Latin to Spanish. Philadelphia: American Philosophical
Society.
Penny, Ralph (2002). A History of the Spanish Language. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Pharies, David A. (2007). A Brief History of the Spanish Language. Chicago:
University of Chicago Press.
Pountain, Christopher J. (2000). A History of the Spanish Language Through Texts.
London: Routledge.
To Portuguese[edit]
Castro, Ivo (2004). Introduo Histria do Portugus. Lisbon: Edies Colibri.
Emiliano, Antnio (2003). Latim e Romance na segunda metade do sculo XI. Lisbon:
Fundao Gulbenkian.
Williams, Edwin B. (1968). From Latin to Portuguese: Historical Phonology and
Morphology of the Portuguese Language. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania
Press.
To Occitan[edit]
Paden, William D. (1998). An Introduction to Old Occitan. New York: Modern Language
Association of America.
To Sardinian[edit]
Blasco Ferrer, Eduardo (1984). Storia linguistica della Sardegna. Tbingen: Max
Niemeyer Verlag.
External links[edit]
Batzarov, Zdravko (2000). "Orbis Latinus". Retrieved 19 September 2009.
Norberg, Dag; Johnson, R.H. (Translator) (2009) [1980]. "Latin at the End of the
Imperial Age". Manuel pratique de latin mdival. New York: Columbia University
Press, Orbis Latinus.
"Corpus Grammaticorum Latinorum". Paris: Laboratoire d'Histoire des thories
linguistiques. 2008. Retrieved 19 September 2009.
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