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Lois phonétiques · Loi 2 · Voyelles

Stressed short O breaks into ue / uo / eu

Ŏ (stressed)

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

Espagnol

ue (open and closed syllables)

Français

eu, œu (open syllable); o (closed)

Italien

uo (open syllable); o (closed)

Portugais

o [ɔ] (no diphthong)

Roumain

o; oa [o̯a] when a or e follows (poartă, moarte)

Catalan

o [ɔ] (no diphthong)

Ce qui s’est passé

The counterpart of the open-e change: Latin short Ŏ became an open [ɔ], which under stress split into a rising diphthong. Spanish made it ue in every stressed syllable; Italian made it uo only in open syllables. French also diphthongized it in open syllables, but its uo then fronted and fused into the single rounded vowel written eu or œu ([ø], [œ]). Portuguese and Catalan kept a plain open [ɔ]; Romanian kept o but broke it into oa when an a or e followed in the next syllable (poartă, moarte), a change that also caught long Ō (FLŌREM → floare).

Exemples

LatinItalienEspagnolFrançaisPortugaisRoumainCatalanParent anglais
NOVUM‘new’nuovonuevoneufnovonounounovel
FOCUM‘hearth → fire’fuocofuegofeufogofocfocfocus
OVUM‘egg’uovohuevoœufovoououoval
PORTAM‘door, gate’portapuertaporteportapoartăportaportal
FORTEM‘strong (ro foarte 'very')’fortefuertefortfortefoartefortfort
MORTEM‘death’mortemuertemortmortemoartemortmortal

Clé de lecture

Spanish ue in a stressed syllable is Latin o: try o in Portuguese, Catalan, and in Italian and French when a consonant cluster follows (puerta → porta, porte), uo and eu when a single consonant follows (nuevo → nuovo, neuf). Romanian oa is the same o before a or e: poartă = porta.

Exceptions

A following yod blocks the Spanish diphthong (NOCTEM → noche, OCULUM → ojo, FOLIAM → hoja), and a nasal blocks the French one (BONUM → bueno, bon, buono). Italian has holdouts (NOVEM → nove, beside nueve, neuf), and modern Italian often drops the u after a palatal (figliolo, spagnolo). Portuguese marks the open vowel only by pronunciation (novo [ˈnovu] but nova [ˈnɔvɐ], by metaphony). Learned words keep o (novela, moral).

Voir la transformation: FOCUM

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