An Optimality–theoretic Account of the Evolution of Intervocalic Sonorants from Latin to Spanish and Portuguese

Abstract

From Latin to Spanish and Portuguese, the natural class of sonorant consonants – laterals, rhotics, and nasals – often underwent drastic phonological changes. It is noteworthy that the tendency toward dissimilation, in accordance with Dispersion Theory (Flemming 1996; 1997; 2006), effected opposite changes in intervocalic /l/ and /n/. Portuguese favored geminate simplification and singleton lenition (Lief 2006; Malkiel & Alessandri Teixeira 1985), whereas Spanish tended toward geminate palatalization and singleton retention (Lloyd 1987). This study is an expansion of Holt (2007) and presents a diachronic and contrastive analysis of the evolution of intervocalic /l lː n nː/ from Latin to Spanish and Portuguese.