Lois phonétiques · Loi 17 · Groupes consonantiques

C'L inside a word

-C(U)L-, -T(U)L- (after syncope)

Les explications sont pour l’instant en anglais ; les exemples sont dans toutes les langues.

Espagnol

j [x]

Français

il, ill [j]

Italien

cchi [kkj]

Portugais

lh [ʎ]

Roumain

chi, che [kʲ]

Catalan

ll [ʎ]

Ce qui s’est passé

Spoken Latin dropped the unstressed vowel in endings like -ULUM, creating a cluster CL (OCULUM → *oclu); TL joined it as CL (the Appendix Probi warns 'VETULUS, not VECLUS'). Italian turned the l into a glide and kept the k (doubled): cchi; Romanian did the same with a single k: ochi, ureche. Spanish, French, Portuguese and Catalan treated cl like LI: a palatal [ʎ] that Portuguese (lh) and Catalan (ll) keep, French reduced to [j] and Spanish pushed back to [x].

Exemples

Latin	Italien	Espagnol	Français	Portugais	Roumain	Catalan	Parent anglais
OCULUM‘eye’	occhio	ojo	œil	olho	ochi	ull	ocular
AURICULAM (VL ORICLA)‘ear’	orecchio	oreja	oreille	orelha	ureche	orella	auricular
VETULAM (VL VECLA)‘old (fem.)’	vecchia	vieja	vieille	velha	veche	vella
GENUCULUM‘knee (es hinojo, archaic)’	ginocchio	hinojo	genou	joelho	genunchi	genoll
SPECULUM‘mirror’	specchio	espejo	—	espelho	—	espill

Clé de lecture

Spanish -ejo/-eja and -ojo, French -eil/-eille, Italian -cchio/-cchia, Portuguese -lho/-lha, Catalan -ll/-lla, Romanian -chi/-che: ojo, œil, occhio, olho, ull, ochi. English learned words show -cul-: ocular, auricular.

Exceptions

Learned words keep -culo, -cle, -colo: ocular, espectáculo, vehículo; oculaire, spectacle; oculare, spettacolo. Where the vowel dropped late or not at all, there is no palatal: TĒGULAM gives Spanish teja (its G'L treated like C'L), but Italian tegola and French tuile. Spanish says rodilla for knee today; hinojo survives in de hinojos 'kneeling'.

Voir la transformation: OCULUM

Ce qui s’est passé

Exemples

Clé de lecture

Exceptions

Dans votre lexique