Aller au contenu

Lois phonétiques · Loi 20 · Groupes consonantiques

S + consonant at the start of a word

S + consonant (initial)

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

Espagnol

es-

Français

é- (from es-, s lost)

Italien

s- (kept; takes lo, gli)

Portugais

es-

Roumain

s- (kept)

Catalan

es-

Ce qui s’est passé

Initial s + consonant was hard to start a word with after a consonant, so speakers added a vowel before it, already visible in late imperial inscriptions (spellings like ISPIRITUM, ISCOLA). Spanish, Portuguese, Catalan and French generalized es-; French later lost the s before the consonant (see circumflex), leaving é-. Italian and Romanian keep the bare cluster, which is why Italian needs the special articles lo and gli (lo studente).

Exemples

LatinItalienEspagnolFrançaisPortugaisRoumainCatalanParent anglais
STELLAM‘star’stellaestrellaétoileestrelasteaestrellastellar
SCRĪBERE‘to write’scrivereescribirécrireescreverscrieescriurescribe
SCHOLAM‘school’scuolaescuelaécoleescola—escolaschool
SPATHAM‘broadsword’spadaespadaépéeespada—espasa
SPONSUM‘betrothed → husband’sposoesposoépouxesposo—espòsspouse
SPĪNAM‘thorn (pt espinha 'fishbone')’spinaespinaépineespinha—espinaspine

Clé de lecture

Spanish, Portuguese or Catalan es- or French é- + consonant? Drop the vowel for Italian and Romanian: escribir, écrire → scrivere, scrie. French é- often needs an s back: épine → espina, spina.

Exceptions

Later learned words keep a bare s- in French (spécial, statue, scolaire), and Spanish adds e- even to new loans (estrés, esnob, eslogan), as Portuguese and Catalan do in speech. Italian kept a prosthetic i- after a consonant in older usage (in Isvizzera, per iscritto). Romanian școală is a Slavic loan, not SCHOLAM inherited.

Voir la transformation: SPATHAM

Dans votre lexique