Leyes fonéticas · Ley 6 · Vocales

French vowel + nasal becomes a nasal vowel

vowel + N/M (same syllable)

Por ahora, las explicaciones de esta sección están en inglés; los ejemplos están en todas las lenguas.

Español

vowel + n kept

Francés

nasal vowel (ɑ̃ ɔ̃ ɛ̃); n/m silent

Italiano

vowel + n kept

Portugués

nasal vowel or diphthong too (pão, bom, fim)

Rumano

vowel + n kept; vowel raised before n (pâine, mână, timp)

Catalán

oral vowel; final n after the stress lost (pa, vi)

Qué ocurrió

In medieval French, a vowel followed by n or m in the same syllable let air escape through the nose, and the nasal consonant itself faded away, leaving a nasal vowel. Where the nasal stood before a pronounced vowel, the vowel was nasalized too at first, but early modern French undid this: bonne, femme are said with an oral vowel and a real n or m. Portuguese nasalized on its own and went further, even between vowels (see intervocalic-n): pão, bom, fim. Spanish, Italian, Romanian and Catalan never nasalized; Romanian raised the vowel before n instead (pâine, mână), and Catalan dropped a word-final n (pa, vi; see final-n).

Ejemplos

Latín	Italiano	Español	Francés	Portugués	Rumano	Catalán	Pariente en inglés
PĀNEM‘bread’	pane	pan	pain	pão	pâine	pa
VĪNUM‘wine’	vino	vino	vin	vinho	vin	vi
BONUM‘good’	buono	bueno	bon	bom	bun	bo	bonus
MANUM‘hand’	mano	mano	main	mão	mână	mà	manual
ŪNUM‘one’	uno	uno	un	um	un	un	unit
FĪNEM‘end’	fine	fin	fin	fim	—	fi	final
TEMPUS‘time’	tempo	tiempo	temps	tempo	timp	temps	temporal

Descodificador

A French or Portuguese nasal vowel spelled with n, m or a tilde stands for Spanish, Italian and Romanian vowel + n: pain, pão → pan, pane, pâine; vin → vino, vin. Catalan usually has the bare vowel: pa, vi.

Excepciones

The feminine keeps a real consonant because a vowel followed: BONAM → buena, bonne [bɔn], buona, bună, bona; ŪNAM → una, une, una. Portuguese is the exception there: it lost the n between vowels too, so the feminine is boa beside masculine bom. Spelling hides the merger of in, ain, ein, un into one vowel [ɛ̃] in Parisian French.

Míralo en acción: PLĒNUM

Qué ocurrió

Ejemplos

Descodificador

Excepciones

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