Catalan phonology

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The phonology of Catalan, a Romance language, has a certain degree of dialectal variation. Although there are two standard dialects, one based on Eastern Catalan and one based on Valencian, this article deals with features of all or most dialects as well as regional pronunciation differences. Various studies have focused on different Catalan varieties; for example, Wheeler (1979) and Mascaró (1976) analyze Central Eastern varieties—the former focusing on the educated speech of Barcelona and the latter focusing more on the vernacular of Barcelona—and Recasens (1986) does a careful phonetic study of Central Eastern Catalan.^[1][2]

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Catalan shares features with neighboring Romance languages (Occitan, Italian, Sardinian, Spanish).^[3]

Contents 1 Consonants 1.1 Plosives 1.2 Affricates 1.3 Fricatives 1.4 Sonorants 2 Vowels 2.1 Stressed vowels 2.2 Unstressed vowels 2.3 Diphthongs and triphthongs 3 Processes 3.1 Assimilations 4 Prosody 4.1 Stress 4.2 Phonotactics 5 Dialectal variation 6 Historical development 7 See also 8 Notes 9 References 10 Bibliography 11 External links

Consonants

Consonants of Catalan^[4]

		Bilabial	Labio- dental	Dental/ Alveolar	Palatal	Velar
Nasal		m		n	ɲ	ŋ
Plosive	voiceless	p		t	(c) ~ k
	voiced	b		d	(ɟ) ~ ɡ
Affricate	voiceless			ts	tʃ
	voiced			dz	dʒ
Fricative	voiceless		f	s	ʃ
	voiced		(v)	z	ʒ
Trill				r
Tap				ɾ
Approximant					j	w
Lateral				l	ʎ

Phonetic notes:

• According to Recasens, among the coronal consonants, /t/ and /d/ are denti-alveolar, having both dental and alveolar contact with the tongue. /n/, /l/, and /ɾ/ are "front alveolar"; /s/, /z/, and /r/ are "back alveolar" (or postalveolar); and /ʎ/ and /ɲ/ are "front alveolo-palatal".^[5] There is some confusion in the literature about the precise phonetic characteristics of /ʃ/, /ʒ/, /tʃ/, and /dʒ/; while Recasens, Fontdevila & Pallarès (1995:288) and Recasens & Espinosa (2007:145) describe them as "back alveolo-palatal", implying that the characters ⟨ɕ ʑ tɕ dʑ⟩ would be more accurate, they (and all literature on Catalan) use the characters for palato-alveolar affricates and fricatives while using ⟨ɕ ʑ⟩ for alveolo-palatal sounds in examples in other languages like Polish or Chinese.^[6][7][8] Otherwise, sources, like Carbonell & Llisterri (1992:53) generally describe them as "postalveolar".
• Voiced obstruents undergo final obstruent devoicing so that fred ('cold', m. s.) is pronounced with a [t] while fredes ('cold', f. pl.) is pronounced with [ð].^[9]

Plosives

Voiced plosives become lenited [β ð ɣ] (that is, fricatives or approximants of the same place of articulation) "only in syllable onsets, after continuants".^[10] Exceptions include /d/ after lateral consonants and /b/ after /f/; e.g. ull de bou [ˈuʎ də ˈβɔw] ('oeil-de-boeuf'), bolígraf boníssim [buˈɫiɣɾəv buˈnisim] ('excellent ballpoint'). In the coda position, these sounds are always realized as plosives^[11] except in some dialects of Valencian, where they are lenited.^[12]

In most dialects /b/ and /ɡ/ may be geminated in certain environments (e.g. poble [ˈpɔbːɫə] 'village', regla [ˈreɡːɫə] 'rule'), apart from Valencian where they are lenited.^[13][14]

In Majorcan varieties, /k/ and /ɡ/ become [c] and [ɟ] word-finally and before front vowels,^[12] in some of these dialects, this has extended to all environments except before liquids and back vowels; e.g. sang [ˈsaɲc] ('blood').^[10]

Affricates

The phonemic status of affricates is dubious; after other consonants, affricates are in free variation with fricatives, e.g. clenxa [ˈkɫɛɲtʃə] ~ [ˈkɫɛɲʃə] ('hair parting')^[15] and may be analyzed as either single phonemes or clusters of a stop and a fricative.

• Alveolar affricates, [ts] and [dz], occur the least of all affricates.^[16]
  • [dz] only occurs intervocalically: metzines [məˈdzinəs] ('toxic substances').^[17]
  • Instances of [ts] arise mostly from compounding; the few lexical instances arise from historical compounding.^[15] For instance, potser [puˈtse] ('maybe') comes from pot ('may') + ser ('be' inf). As such, [ts] does not occur word-initially; other than some rare words of foreign origin (e.g. tsar 'tsar',^[18] tsuga 'tsuga'^[19]), but it may occur word-finally and quite often in cases of heteromorphemic (i.e. across a morpheme boundary) plural endings: tots [ˈtots] ('everybody').^[16]
• The distribution of alveolo-palatal affricates, [tʃ] and [dʒ], depends on dialect:
  • In Standard Eastern Catalan, word-initial [tʃ] is found only in a few words of foreign origin (e.g. txec 'Czech',^[20] Txaikovski 'Tchaikovsky') while being found freely intervocalically (e.g. fletxa 'arrow') and word-finally: despatx [dəsˈpatʃ] ('office').
  • Standard Eastern Catalan also only allows [dʒ] in intervocalic position (e.g. metge 'medic', adjunt 'enclosed'). Phonemic analyses show word-final occurrences of /dʒ/ (e.g. raig esbiaixat [ˈradʒ əzβiəˈʃat] 'skew ray'), but final devoicing eliminates this from the surface: raig [ˈratʃ] ('ray').
  • In various other dialects (as well as in emphatic speech),^[21] [tʃ] occurs word-initially and after another consonant to the exclusion of [ʃ]. These instances of word-initial [tʃ] seem to correspond to [ʃ] in other dialects, including the standard (on which the orthography is based): xinxa ('bedbug'), pronounced [ˈʃiɲʃə] in the standard, is [ˈtʃiɲtʃə] in these varieties.^[17]
  • Similarly, in most of Valencian and southern Catalonia,^[16][22] most occurrences of [dʒ] correspond to the voiced fricative [ʒ] in Standard Eastern Catalan: gel [ˈdʒɛɫ] ('ice').

There is dialectal variation in regards to affricate length, with long affricates occurring in both Eastern and Western dialects such as in Majorca and specific Northern and Southern Valencian areas and short affricates being otherwise widespread throughout Valencia.^[23] Also, intervocalic affricates are predominately long, especially those that are voiced or occurring immediately after a stressed syllable (e.g. metge [ˈmed.dʒə] 'medic').^[24]

Fricatives

/v/ occurs in Balearic,^[21] as well as in Alguerese, standard Valencian and some areas in southern Catalonia.^[25] Everywhere else, it has merged with /b/.^[26] In Majorcan, [v] and [w] are in complementary distribution, with [v] occurring before vowels (e.g. blava [ˈbɫavə] 'blue' f. vs blau [ˈbɫaw] 'blue' m.). In other varieties that have both sounds, they are in contrast before vowels, with neutralization in favor of [w] before consonants.^[27]

In some Valencian dialects, /s/ and /ʃ/ are auditorily similar such that neutralization may occur in the future.^[28] That is the case of Northern Valencian where /ʃ/ is depalatalized to [jsʲ] or [js] as in caixa ('box'). Central Valencian words like mig ('half') and lleig ('ugly') have been transcribed with [ts] rather than the expected [tʃ], and Southern Valencian /tʃ/ "has been reported to undergo depalatalization without merging with [ts]".^[29] as in passets ('small steps') versus passeig ('promenade')

In Aragon and Central Valencian (the so called apitxat) voiced fricatives and affricates are missing (i.e. /z/ has merged with /s/, /dʒ/ has merged with /tʃ/, with only voiceless realizations occurring) and /v/ has merged with the [b ~ β] set.^[30]

Sonorants

While "dark (velarized) l", [ɫ], may be a positional allophone of /l/ in most dialects (such as in the syllable coda; e.g. sòl [ˈsɔɫ] 'ground'),^[31] /l/ is dark irrespective of position in Eastern dialects like Majorcan^[32] and standard Eastern Catalan (e.g. tela [ˈtɛɫə]).

The distribution of the two rhotics /r/ and /ɾ/ closely parallels that of Spanish. Between vowels, the two contrast (e.g. mirra [ˈmirə] 'myrrh' vs. mira [ˈmiɾə] 'look'), but they are otherwise in complementary distribution: in the onset, [r] appears unless preceded by a consonant; different dialects vary in regards to rhotics in the coda with Western Catalan generally featuring [ɾ] and Central Catalan dialects like those of Barcelona or Girona featuring a weakly trilled [r] unless it precedes a vowel-initial word in the same prosodic unit, in which case [ɾ] appears.^[33]

In careful speech, /n/, /m/, and /l/ may be geminated (e.g. innecessari [inːəsəˈsaɾi] 'unnecessary'; emmagatzemar [əmːəɣədzəˈma] 'to store'; il·lusió [iɫːuziˈo] 'illusion'). A geminated /ʎʎ/ may also occur (e.g. ratlla [ˈraʎːə] 'line').^[21] Wheeler (1979) analyzes intervocalic [r] as the result of gemination of a single rhotic phoneme: sorra /ˈsoɾɾə/ → [ˈsorə] 'sand' (this is similar to the common analysis of Spanish and Portuguese rhotics).^[34]

Vowels

Vowels of Catalan

	Front	Central	Back
Close	i		u
Close-mid	e	(ə)	o
Open-mid	ɛ		ɔ
Open	a

Phonetic notes:

• The vowel /a/ is further back and open than the Castilian counterpart in North-Western and Central Catalan, slightly fronted and closed in Valencian and Ribagorçan [ä ~ ɐ], and further fronted and closed [a ~ æ] in Majorcan.^[35]
• The mid-open vowels /ɛ/ and /ɔ/ are lower in Majorcan, Minorcan and Valencian, that is, in these dialects the phonetic realization of /ɛ/ approaches [æ], while /ɔ/ is as low as [ɒ].^[36][37][38]
• In Alguerese, Northern Catalan and some places bordering the Spanish-speaking areas, mid-open and close-mid vowels may merge into mid vowels; [e̞] and [o̞].^[39]
• Northern Catalan may add two loan rounded vowels, [y] and [ø̞], from French and Occitan (e.g. but [ˈbyt] 'aim', fulles [ˈfø̞jəs] 'leaves').^[40]
• In the Barcelona metropolitan area unstressed schwa is lowered to a near-open central vowel [ɐ], sounding closer to but in RP or Californian English.^[38][41]
• Phonetic nasalization occurs for vowels occurring between nasal consonants or when preceding a syllable-final nasal; e.g. diumenge [diwˈmẽɲʒə] ('Sunday').^[42]

Stressed vowels

Most varieties of Catalan contrast seven stressed vowel phonemes.^[43] However, some Balearic dialects have an additional stressed vowel phoneme (/ə/); e.g. sec /ˈsək/ ('dry').^[12] The stressed schwa of these dialects corresponds to /ɛ/ in Central Catalan and /e/ in Western Catalan varieties (that is, Central and Western Catalan dialects differ in their incidence of /e/ and /ɛ/, with /e/ appearing more frequently in Western Catalan; e.g. Central Catalan sec /ˈsɛk/ vs Western Catalan sec /ˈsek/ 'dry, I sit').^[43]

Contrasting series of the main Catalan dialects:

Central Catalan[12] Vowel IPA word gloss i /ˈsik/ sic 'sic' e /ˈsek/ séc 'fold' ɛ /ˈsɛk/1 sec 'dry' 'I sit' a /ˈsak/ sac 'bag' o /ˈsok/ sóc 'I am' ɔ /ˈsɔk/ soc 'clog' u /ˈsuk/ suc 'juice'

Western Catalan[12] Vowel IPA word gloss i /ˈsik/ sic 'sic' e /ˈsek/1 séc sec 'fold' 'dry, I sit' ɛ /ˈsɛt/2 set 'seven' a /ˈsak/ sac 'bag' o /ˈsok/ sóc 'I am' ɔ /ˈsɔk/ soc 'clog' u /ˈsuk/ suc 'juice'

Balearic Catalan[12] Vowel IPA word gloss i /ˈsik/ sic 'sic' e /ˈsek/ séc 'fold' ɛ /ˈsɛk/ sec 'I sit' ə /ˈsək/ sec 'dry' a /ˈsak/ sac 'bag' o /ˈsok/ sóc 'I am' ɔ /ˈsɔk/ soc 'clog' u /ˈsuk/ suc 'juice'

Unstressed vowels

Vowels in unstressed syllables are reduced to three in Eastern Catalan (/a/, /e/, and /ɛ/ → [ə]; /o/, /ɔ/ and /u/ → [u]; and /i/ → [i]). However there are some dialectal differences: Alguerese merges /a/, /e/, and /ɛ/ with [a]; and in most areas of Majorca, [o] can appear in unstressed position (that is, /o/ and /ɔ/ are usually reduced to [o]).^[44]

In Western Catalan vowels in unstressed position reduce to five (/a/ → [a]; /e/ and /ɛ/ → [e]; /o/ and /ɔ/ → [o]; /u/ → [u]; and /i/ → [i]).^[45]

Contrasting series of unstressed vowels:

Eastern Catalan[12] Vowel IPA word gloss i /si/ si 'if' ə /sə/ /sə/ se sa 'itself' 'her' u /nus/1 /uns/ -nos uns 'us' 'some'

Western Catalan[12] Vowel IPA word gloss i /si/ si 'if' e /se/ se 'itself' a /sa/ sa 'her' o /nos/ -nos 'us' u /uns/ uns 'some'

In some Western Catalan dialects, reduced vowels tend to merge into different realizations in some cases:

• Unstressed /e/ may merge with [a] before a nasal or sibilant consonant (e.g. enclusa [aŋˈkluza] 'anvil', eixam [ajˈʃam] 'swarm'), in some environments before any consonant (e.g. terròs [taˈrɔs] 'earthy'), and in monosyllabic clitics.^[46] Likewise, unstressed /e/ may merge into [i] when in contact with palatal consonants (e.g. senyor [siˈɲo(ɾ)] 'lord').^[47]

• Unstressed /o/ may merge with [u] before a bilabial consonant (e.g. cobert [kuˈβɛɾt] 'covered'), before a stressed syllable with a high vowel (e.g. conill [kuˈniʎ] 'rabbit'), in contact with palatal consonants (e.g. Josep [(d)ʒuˈzɛp] 'Joseph'), and in monosyllabic clitics.^[48]

Diphthongs and triphthongs

There are also a number of phonetic diphthongs and triphthongs, all of which begin and/or end in [j] or [w].^[49]

Falling diphthongs
IPA	word	gloss	IPA	word	gloss
[aj]	aigua	'water'	[aw]	taula	'table'
[əj]	mainada	'children'	[əw]	caurem	'we will fall'
[ɛj]	remei	'remedy'	[ɛw]	peu	'foot'
[ej]	rei	'king'	[ew]	seu	'his/her'
			[iw]	niu	'nest'
[ɔj]	noi	'boy'	[ɔw]	nou	'new'
			[ow]	jou	'yoke'
[uj]	avui	'today'	[uw]	duu	's/he is carrying'
Rising diphthongs
IPA	word	gloss	IPA	word	gloss
[ja]	iaia	'grandma'	[wa]	guant	'glove'
[jɛ]	veiem	'we see'	[wɛ]	seqüència	'sequence'
[je]	seient	'seat'	[we]	ungüent	'ointment'
[jə]	feia	's/he was doing'	[wə]	qüestió	'question'
			[wi]	pingüí	'penguin'
[jɔ]	iode	'iodine'	[wɔ]	quota	'payment'
[ju]	iogurt	'yoghurt'
Triphthongs
IPA	word	gloss	IPA	word	gloss
[jəw]	dúieu	'you carried'
[jɛw]	creieu	'you believe'	[wɛw]	liqüeu	'you blend'
			[waj]	guaita	'he watches'
			[wəj]	guaitar	'to watch'

In standard Eastern Catalan, rising diphthongs (that is, those starting with [j] or [w]) are only possible in the following contexts:^[50]

• [j] in word-initial position, e.g. iogurt.
• Both occur between vowels as in feia and veiem.
• In the sequences [ɡw] or [kw] and vowel, e.g. guant, quota, qüestió, pingüí (these exceptional cases even lead some scholars^[51] to hypothesize the existence of rare labiovelar phonemes /ɡʷ/ and /kʷ/).^[52]

Processes

There are certain instances of compensatory diphthongization in Majorcan so that troncs /ˈtɾoncs/ ('logs') (in addition to deleting the palatal plosive) develops a compensating palatal glide and surfaces as [ˈtɾojns] (and contrasts with the unpluralized [ˈtɾoɲc]). Diphthongization compensates for the loss of the palatal stop (segment loss compensation). There are other cases where diphthongization compensates for the loss of point of articulation features (property loss compensation) as in [ˈaɲ] ('year') vs [ˈajns] ('years').^[53]

The dialectal distribution of compensatory diphthongization is almost entirely dependent on the dorsal plosive (/k~c/) and the extent of consonant assimilation (whether or not it's extended to palatals).^[54]

Voiced affricates are devoiced after stressed vowels in dialects like Eastern Catalan where there may be a correlation between devoicing and lengthening (gemination) of voiced affricates: metge /ˈmeddʒə/ → [ˈmettʃə] ('medic').^[8] In Barcelona, voiced plosives may be fortified (geminated and devoiced); e.g. poble [ˈpɔpːɫə] 'village').^[21]

Assimilations

Nasal			Lateral
word	IPA	gloss	word	IPA	gloss
ínfim	[ˈiɱfim]	'lowest'
anterior	[ən̪təɾiˈo]	'previous'	altes	[ˈaɫ̪təs]	'tall' (f. pl.)
engegar	[əɲʒəˈɣa]	'to start (up)'	àlgid	[ˈaʎʒit]	'decesive'
sang	[saŋ(k)]	'blood'
sagna	[ˈsaŋnə]~[ˈsagnə]	'he bleeds'
cotna	[ˈkonːə]	'rind'	atles	[ˈaɫːəs]~[ˈadɫəs]	'atlas'
sotmetent	[sumːəˈten]	'submitting'	motlle	[ˈmɔʎːə]	'spring, mold'

Catalan denti-alveolar plosives can fully assimilate to the following consonant, producing gemination; this is particularly evident before nasal and lateral consonants: e.g. cotna ('rind'), motlle/motle ('spring'), and setmana ('week'). Learned words can alternate between featuring and not featuring such assimilation (e.g. atles [ˈadɫəs]~[ˈaɫːəs] 'atlas', administrar [ədminisˈtɾa]~[əmːinisˈtɾa] 'to administer').^[55][56]

Central Valencian features simple elision in many of these cases (e.g cotna [ˈkona], setmana [seˈmana]) though learned words don't exhibit either assimilation or elision: atles [ˈadles] and administrar [adminisˈtɾaɾ].^[57]

Prosody

Stress

Stress most often occurs on any of the last three syllables of a word (e.g. brúixola [ˈbɾuʃuɫə] 'compass', càstig [ˈkastik] 'punishment', pallús [pəˈʎus] 'fool').

Compound words and adverbs formed with /ˈment/ may have more than one stressed syllable (e.g. bonament [ˌbɔnəˈmen] 'willingly'; parallamps [ˌpaɾəˈʎams] 'lightning conductor') but every lexical word has just one stressed syllable.^[58]

Phonotactics

Any consonant, as well as [j] and [w] may be an onset. Clusters may consist of a consonant plus a semivowel (C[j], C[w]) or an obstruent plus a liquid. Some speakers may have one of these obstruent-plus-liquid clusters preceding a semivowel, e.g. síndria [ˈsin.dɾjə] ('watermelon'); for other speakers, this is pronounced [ˈsin.dɾi.ə] (i.e. the semivowel must be syllabic in this context).^[59]

Word-medial codas are restricted to one consonant + [s] (extra [ˈɛks.tɾə]).^[60] In the coda position, voice contrasts among obstruents are neutralized.^[61] Although there are exceptions (such as futur [fuˈtur] 'future'), syllable-final rhotics are often lost before a word boundary or before the plural morpheme of most words: color [kuˈɫo] ('color') vs. coloraina [kuɫuˈɾajnə] ('bright color').^[21]

In Central Eastern Catalan, obstruents fail to surface word-finally when preceded by a homorganic consonant (e.g. /nt/ → [n]). Complex codas simplify only if the loss of the segment doesn't result in the loss of place specification.^[62]

Suffixation examples
	Final		gloss	Internal		gloss
no cluster	camp	[ˈkam]	'field'	camperol	[kəmpəˈɾɔɫ]	'peasant'
	punt	[ˈpun]	'point'	punta	[ˈpuntə]	'tip'
	banc	[ˈbaŋ]	'bank'	banca	[ˈbaŋkə]	'banking'
	malalt	[məˈɫaɫ]	'ill'	malaltia	[məɫəɫˈti.ə]	'illness'
	hort	[ˈɔr]	'orchard'	hortalitza	[urtəˈɫidzə]	'vegetable'
	gust	[ˈɡus]	'taste'	gustar	[ɡusˈta]	'to like'
cluster	serp	[ˈserp]	'snake'	serpentí	[sərpənˈti]	'snake-like'
	disc	[ˈdisk]	'disk'	disquet	[disˈkɛt]	'diskette'
	remolc	[rəˈmɔɫk]	'trailer'	remolcar	[rəmuɫˈka]	'to tow'

When the suffix -erol [əˈɾɔɫ] is added to camp [ˈkam] it makes [kəmpəˈɾɔɫ], indicating that the underlying representation is |ˈkamp| (with subsequent cluster simplification), however when the copula [ˈes] is added it makes [ˈkam ˈes]. The resulting generalization is that this underlying /p/ will only surface in a morphologically complex word.^[63] Despite this, word-final codas are not usually simplified in most of Balearic and Valencian (e.g. camp [ˈkamp]).^[64]

Word-initial clusters from Graeco-Latin learned words tend to drop the first phoneme: pneumàtic [nəwˈmatik] ('pneumatic'), pseudònim [səwˈðɔnim] ('pseudonym'), pterodàctil [təɾuˈðaktiɫ] ('pterodactylus'), gnom [ˈnom] ('gnome').^[65]

Word-final obstruents are devoiced, however they assimilate voicing of the following consonant; e.g. cuc de seda [ˈkuɡ də ˈsɛðə] ('silkworm'). In regular and fast speech, stops often assimilate the place of articulation of the following consonant producing gemination: tot bé [ˈtod ˈbe] → [ˈtob ˈbe] ('all good').^[66]

Word-final fricatives (except /f/) are voiced before a following vowel; e.g. bus enorme [ˈbuz əˈnormə] ('huge bus').^[67]

In Majorcan and Minorcan Catalan, /f/ undergoes total assimilation to a following consonant (just as stops do): buf gros [ˈbuɡ ˈɡɾɔs] ('large puff').^[68]

Dialectal variation

The differences in the vocalic systems outlined above are the main criteria used to differentiate between the major dialects: Wheeler (2005) distinguishes two major dialect groups, western and eastern dialects; the latter of which only allow [i], [ə], and [u] to appear in unstressed syllables and include Northern Catalan, Central Catalan, Balearic, and Alguerese. Western dialects, which allow any vowel in unstressed syllables, include Valencian and North-Western Catalan.

Regarding consonants, betacism and fricative–affricate alternations are the most prominent differences between dialects.

Other dialectal features are:

• Vowel harmony with /ɔ/ and /ɛ/ in Southern Valencian; this process is progressive (i.e. preceding vowels affect those pronounced afterwards) over the last unstressed vowel of a word; e.g. hora /ˈɔɾa/ → [ˈɔɾɔ]. However, there are cases where regressive metaphony occurs over pretonic vowels; e.g. tovallola /tovaˈʎɔla/ → [tɔvɔˈʎɔlɔ] ('towel'), afecta /aˈfɛkta/ → [ɛˈfɛktɛ] ('affects').^[69]
• In Southern Valencian subvarieties, especially in Alicante Valencian, the diphthong /ɔu/ (phonetically [ɒw] in Valencian) has become [ɑw]: bous [ˈbɑws] ('bulls').^[70]
• In regular speech in both, Eastern and Western Catalan dialects, word-initial unstressed /o/ –[u] or [o]– may be diphthongized to [əw] (Eastern Catalan) or [aw] (Western Catalan): ofegar [əwfəˈɣa]~[awfeˈɣa(ɾ)] ('to drown, suffocate').^[71]
• In Aragonese Catalan (including Ribagorçan), /l/ is palatalized to [ʎ] in consonant clusters; e.g. plou [ˈpʎɔw] 'it rains'.^[72]
• In Alguerese and Ribagorçan word-final /ʎ/ and /ɲ/ are depalatized to [l] and [n], respectively; e.g. gall [ˈgal] ('rooster'), any [ˈan] ('year').^[73][74]
• Varying degrees of L-velarization among dialects: /l/ is dark irrespective of position in Balearic and Central Catalan and might tend to vocalization in some cases. In Western varieties like Valencian, this dark l contrasts with a clear l in intervocalic and word-initial position; while in other dialects, like Alguerese or Northern Catalan, /l/ is never velarized in any instance.^[31][75]
• Iodització (also known as iesme històric "historic yeísmo") in regular speech in most of Majorcan, Northern Catalan and in the historic comarca of Vallès (Barcelona): /ʎ/ merges with [j] in some Latin derived words with intervocalic L-palatalization (intervocalic /l/ + yod (-li-, -le-), -ll-, -cvl-, and -gvl-); e.g. palla [ˈpajə] ('straw'). An exception to this rule is initial L-palatalization; e.g. lluna [ˈʎunə] ('moon').^[76]
• The dorso-palatal [ʝ] may occur in complementary distribution with [ɟ], only in Majorcan varieties that have dorso-palatals rather than the velars found in most dialects: guerra [ˈɟɛrə] ('war') vs sa guerra [sə ˈʝɛrə] ('the war').^[77]
• In northern and transitional Valencian, word-initial and postconsonantal /dʒ/ (Eastern Catalan /ʒ/ and /dʒ ~ ʒ/) alternates with [(j)ʒ] intervocalically; e.g. joc [ˈdʒɔk] 'game', but pitjor [piˈʒo] 'worse', boja [ˈbɔjʒa] 'crazy' (standard Valencian /ˈdʒɔk/, /piˈdʒoɾ/; /ˈbɔdʒa/; standard Catalan /ˈʒɔk/, /piˈdʒo/ and /ˈbɔʒə/).^[78]
• In northern Valencia and southern Catalonia /s/ has merged with realizations of /ʃ/ after a high front vocoid; e.g. terrissa [teˈriʃa] ('pottery'), insistisc [insiʃˈtiʃk] ('I insist') vs. pixar [piˈʃa(ɾ)] ('to pee'), deixar [dejˈʃa(ɾ)] ('to leave'). In these varieties /ʃ/ is not found after other vocoids, and merges with /tʃ/ after consonants; e.g. punxa [ˈpuɲtʃa] ('thorn').^[79]
• Intervocalic /d/ dropping (particularly participles) in regular speech in Valencian, with compensatory lengthening of vowel /a/; e.g. vesprada [vesˈpɾaː] ('evening').^[80]
• In northern Catalonia and in the town of Sóller (Majorca), a uvular trill [ʀ] or approximant [ʁ] can be heard instead of an alveolar trill; e.g. córrer [ˈkoʀə]~[ˈkoʁə] ('to run').^[81]

Historical development

As a Romance language, Catalan comes directly from Vulgar Latin. As such, it shares certain phonological changes from Latin with other Romance languages:^[82]

• Intervocalic consonant lenition, similar to most of Western Romance languages:
  • Intervocalic sounds were often voiced (circa fifth century AD).
  • /b/ and /w/ between vowels became [β]. E.g. caballu → cavall "horse" (except in Valencian, Balearic and Alguerese).
  • /d/ became [ð] between vowels in Iberia, Gaul, Raetia, northern Italy, and a part of Sardinia.
  • Intervocalic pretonic /ɡ/ was deleted in most words.
  • In some cases other voiced stops were lost as well. E.g. volebat → volia "s/he wanted", pavore → pahor → por "awe".^[83]
  • Geminate voiceless stops are simplified. E. g. bucca → boca "mouth", passare → passar [pəˈsa] ~ [paˈsar] "pass".^[84]
• The velars /k/ and /ɡ/ became palatalized before front vowels.
  • by the fourth century, palatalized /ɡ/ had become a palatal approximant /j/. When following a vowel and preceding a stressed vowel, this approximant became fused with the following front vowel: /maˈɡister/ → [maˈjɪster] → [maˈester] → [ˈmastiɾ]. In the Iberian peninsula, southwestern Gaul, and portions of Sardinia, Sicily, and southwestern Italy, this palatal approximant stage was retained while other dialects made different developments.
  • Palatalized /k/, which had developed a palatal offglide (i.e. [kʲj], continued to advance further forward in the mouth to become [tʲj] (which led to some confusion between /kj/ and /tj/). By the sixth or seventh century, this palatalized coronal had become an affricate ([tʲsʲ] or [ts]).
  • /sk/ was also part of this palatalization.
• Before or after another consonant /l/ was velarized (leading to l-vocalization in some dialects. After consonants, this may have led to the realization of a palatal lateral in Spanish and Italian.
• /kʷ/ became /k/ before /u/ and /o/ by the first century.
• /h/ was deleted, first when medial and then in all contexts soon after.
• /m/ and /n/ became silent word-finally (presumably after an intermediate state of being realized as the nasalization of the preceding vowel); the latter also being lost in the coda position before /s/.
• /ks/ was reduced to /s/ before or after another consonant. By analogy, the prefix ex- before vowels may have also been pronounced /es/. Later on, /ks/ was also reduced word-finally except in monosyllabic words.
• /sj/, /lj/ and /nj/ became palatal between vowels.
• stressed /e/ and /i/, when immediately followed by a vowel of the penultimate syllable, became /j/; /u/ in the same environment became /w/.^[85]
• /ss/ after diphthongs and long vowels reduced to /s/ (degeminated): /kaːssus/ → /kaːsus/. There was just general confusion in regards to geminated consonants but they were normally retained after long vowels.^[86]
• Short /i/ and /u/ became [e] and [o], probably by the first century AD. Also, vowel quantity between short mid-vowels and long mid-vowels became differentiated: /deus/ → [dɛus].^[87]
• /n/, followed by a fricative (/f/, /ʒ/, /s/, or /v/), was deleted and replaced by the lengthening of the previous vowel: /kensor/ → /tʃeːsor/.^[88]
• Eventually (in Spain and parts of Gaul), all stressed vowels were pronounced long while unstressed vowels were short. The new long vowels were pronounced in most regions with diphthongization although Portugal, southern Gaul, Lombardy, and Sicily didn’t participate in this early breaking. The vowels most affected were /ɛː/ and /ɔː/.^[88]
• Vowels were often syncopated.^[89]
  • between a labial and another consonant.
    • when such a deletion brought [aβ] to precede another consonant, it became [au].
  • between a consonant and a liquid or vice versa.
• Like Occitan, loss of Latin final unstressed vowels, except -a; and then after some of the resulting consonantic groups a support vowel -e (pronounced [e] or [ə]) appears, e. g. fame → fam "hunger"; bucca → boca "mouth"; nostru → nostre "ours".
• Loss of final -n after the demise of final unstressed vowels, e. g. manu → *man → mà "hand".
• In Oriental dialects: Latin short e → closed [e], and Latin long e → neutral vowel [ə] and then later → open [ɛ]; so the final outcome of Latin short and long e is reversed in relation to other Romance languages.
• Unlike Occitan and other Gallo-Romance languages, Catalan preserves the three degrees for rounded back vowels /ɔ o u/, and /u/ is not fronted to /y/.
• Unlike Spanish and other Iberian Romance languages, betacism or loss of b/v distinction seems to be in Catalan an innovation since the modern era.
• Like Asturian, palatalization of Latin word-initial l-; e.g. luna → lluna "moon"; lupu → llop "wolf".
• Vocalization to [w] of final -d of diverse origins and the Latin verbal ending -tis: pede → peu [pɛw] "foot"; credit → creu [ˈkɾɛw] "he believes"; miratis → miratz → mirau → mireu [miˈɾɛw] "you watch".

See also

• List of phonetics topics
• Catalan orthography
• Dialects of Catalan
• Occitan phonology

Notes

1.^ The pronunciation of sec ('dry') merges with sec ('I sit') in Central Catalan, whereas sec ('dry, I sit') merges with séc ('fold') in Western Catalan.

2.^ Contrasts with set /ˈset/ ('thirsty') in Western Catalan.

3.^ In most of Majorcan /o/ can appear in unstressed position: -nos /nos/ ('us').

References

Bibliography

• Badia i Margarit, Antoni Maria (1988), Sons i fonemes de la llengua catalana, Barcelona: Universitat de Barcelona, ISBN 84-7528-500-7 
• Bonet, Eulàlia; Mascaró, Joan (1997), "On the representation of contrasting rhotics", in Martínez-Gil, Fernando, Issues in the Phonology and Morphology of the Major Iberian Languages, Georgetown University Press, pp. 103–126, ISBN 978-0-87840-647-0 
• Carbonell, Joan F.; Llisterri, Joaquim (1992), "Catalan", Journal of the International Phonetic Association 22 (1-2): 53–56, doi:10.1017/S0025100300004618 
• Carbonell, Joan F.; Llisterri, Joaquim (1999), "Catalan", Handbook of the International Phonetic Association: A Guide to the usage of the International Phonetic Alphabet, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 61–65, ISBN 978-0-521-63751-0 
• Fabra, Pompeu (2008), Gramàtica catalana (7th ed.), Barcelona: Institut d'Estudis Catalans, ISBN 978-84-7283-290-9 
• Grandgent, Charles Hall (1907), "Phonology", An Introduction to Vulgar Latin, D.C. Heath & Co., pp. 60–143, ISBN 978-1-4021-6201-5 
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• Mascaró, Joan (1976) (Doctoral thesis), Catalan Phonology and the Phonological Cycle, Massachusetts Institute of Technology 
• Mascaró, Juan (2001), "Compensatory diphthongization in Majorcan Catalan", in Kreidler, Charles W., Phonology: Critical Concepts in Linguistics, Taylor and Francis, pp. 580–593, ISBN 978-0-415-20347-0 
• Padgett, Jaye (2003), Systemic contrast and Catalan rhotics, University of California, Santa Cruz 
• Rafel, Joaquim (1981), La lengua catalana fronteriza en el Bajo Aragón meridional. Estudio fonológico, Barcelona: Universitat de Barcelona 
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External links

• A proposal for Catalan SAMPA
• Gramàtica de la llengua catalana (Catalan)
• Els sons del català (Catalan)
• L'estàndard oral valencià (Catalan)

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