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Sound laws · Law 26 · Endings

-TIŌNEM: learned -ción, inherited -zón

-TIŌNEM

Spanish

-ción (learned); inherited -zón

French

-tion (learned); inherited -son

Italian

-zione (learned); inherited -zzone or -gione

Portuguese

-ção (learned and inherited alike: nação, razão)

Romanian

-țiune (learned); inherited -ciune (tăciune)

Catalan

-ció (learned); inherited -ó (raó, tió)

What happened

Almost every -ción, -tion, -zione, -ção, -ció, -țiune word was borrowed back from written Latin, which is why they match each other and English so closely. Words spoken without a break since Latin show the real sound laws: TI before a vowel became es z [θ], fr s [z], pt ç [s], ca z that was then lost (raó), ro ci [tʃ], and in Italian usually zz [tts] (tizzone, piazza), but gi [dʒ] in -gione words such as ragione and stagione, whose source (native Tuscan or Gallo-Romance influence) is debated. RATIŌNEM is the model: razón, raison, ragione, razão, raó.

Examples

LatinItalianSpanishFrenchPortugueseRomanianCatalanEnglish relative
RATIŌNEM‘reckoning → reason’ragionerazónraisonrazãorațiune (learned)raóreason
TĪTIŌNEM‘firebrand (ro tăciune 'ember'; ca tió 'log')’tizzonetizóntisontiçãotăciunetió
NĀTIŌNEM‘birth, people → nation’nazionenaciónnationnaçãonațiunenaciónation
STATIŌNEM‘standing, post’stazione (inherited: stagione 'season')estaciónstationestaçãostațiuneestacióstation
POTIŌNEM‘drink’pozionepociónpotion (inherited: poison)poção (inherited: peçonha 'venom')poțiunepociópotion
CANTIŌNEM‘song’canzonecanciónchansoncanção—cançó

Decoder

Learned -ción/-tion/-zione/-ção/-ció/-țiune map one-to-one: nación, nation, nazione, nação, nació, națiune. But an everyday word in -zón, -son [zɔ̃], -gione, Catalan -ó or Romanian -ciune often hides the same suffix: razón, raison, ragione, raó; tizón, tăciune.

Exceptions

Doublets show both treatments side by side: Italian stagione/stazione, French poison/potion, Spanish razón/ración (RATIŌNEM), Portuguese peçonha/poção. Spanish canción is a half-learned form (Old Spanish also had cançón), while French chanson is fully inherited. In Portuguese the two layers converged on -ção, so only the meaning tells them apart.

In your word bank