Spanish Phonetics and Phonology
The ‘f > h change’ 1
Spanish Phonetics and Phonology
1 Stating the ‘f>h change’
Latin initial /f/ is progressively weakened and eventually lost in standard Castilian in popular
words, unless the /f/ is followed by a liquid consonant or a back semivowel ([w]), or in some
instances by a front semivowel ([j]). Weakening also sometimes takes place intervocalically.
This eventually produces a phoneme split, creating for a time /h/ in addition to /f/, until /h/ is
eventually lost. Thus
Lat. furnu(m) // > Sp. horno //
Lat. f¢
aba // > Sp. haba /a/
Lat. f¢e rru(m) // > Sp. hierro /iero/
- are
- // > Sp. sahumar /saumaR/
Lat. s¢
ubfum
Lat. defensa
// > Sp. dehesa //
but
Lat. fratre(m
)// > Sp. fraile /R/
Lat. f¢
ocu(m) // > Sp. fuego //
Lat. f¢e sta // > Sp. fiesta /fiesta/
Lat. f¢
ac¢i le(m) // > Sp. fácil /f/
(before a liquid consonant)
(before [w])
(before [j])
(learned borrowing)
2 Phonetic detail
We cannot be sure of the phonetic detail of the change.
2.1 A hypothesis
A possible general scenario is:
[f] > [] > [h] > Ø
Penny’s hypothesis (starting from a supposed ?//):
Stage 1 (late ‘Vulgar’ Latin of Cantabria)
//:
[] in the context of following [w]
[] elsewhere
Stage 2 (Dissimilation of [] before lip-rounded vowels)
//:
[] in the context of following [w]
[h] in the context of following [o], [u]
[] elsewhere
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Spanish Phonetics and Phonology
The ‘f > h change’ 2
Stage 3 (Generalization of [h] to appear before all syllabic vowels)
//:
[] in the context of following [w]
[h] in the context of following [i], [e], [a], [o], [u] and [j]
[] in the context of following [r], [l]
Stage 4 ([] and [] ‘strengthen’ to [f])
/~h/:
[f] in the context of following [w], [r], [l]
[h] elsewhere
Stage 5
[f] and [h] split into phonemes /f/ and /h/
Stage 6
/h/ disappears as a result of [h] > Ø
2.2 The evidence
Nebrija’s system of spelling (1492) differentiates between those reflexes of the /f/ which
were preserved as [f] and the /f/ which was eventually to be dropped altogether: the former
generally being spelt as f and the latter as h. [h] is still preserved in some dialects.
Old Castilian texts generally spell all reflexes of /f/ as f (the sporadic use of h increasing with
time), which gives us little clue as to the actual phonetic value of f. Penny (1990) has argued
that there was a distinction between /f/ and /h/ (or ?//) even when both were spelt with f.
3 The ‘irregularity’ of the change
·
Simple failure of the rule to apply in one of the expected contexts:
Lat. foedu(m) // > Sp. feo //
Lat. fixu(m) // > Sp. fijo //.
·
Plausible semilearned influence?
Lat. f¢e sta // > fiesta //
- i u(m) > Sp. febrero /R/
Lat. f¢e br¢
uar¢
Lat. forma // > Sp. horma ‘shoe-last’ /oRma/ / forma ‘form’ /foRma/
Lat. facta /ta/ > Sp. hecha ‘done’ // / fecha ‘date’ //
Variation among speakers: weakening may have been more typical of rural speech (see 4.3).
4 Why did the change occur?
4.1 The substrate hypothesis
Latin [f] was modified because Basque learners of Latin found difficulty in pronouncing it.
For:
· Evidence that Basque in the early Middle Ages had no /f/ phoneme.
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Spanish Phonetics and Phonology
The ‘f > h change’ 3
·
There is a similar f>h change in Gascon, a striking coincidence (both Castile and Gascony
bordered the Basque Country).
Against:
· /f/ in Latin loanwords in Basque is not adapted to [] or [h] but to a bilabial plosive:
Lat. f¢e sta // > Basque besta //
Lat. fagu(m)
// > Basque pago //
·
·
·
Later Basque speakers do not seem to have problems in borrowing Castilian words
beginning with /f/.
Why does /f/ survive in Castilian at all? (see 4.4 for a possible answer)
The movement of [f] to [h] is not an unusual change: it is evidenced in a number of
southern Italian dialects (Rohlfs 1966:206-7) and is widespread in Andalusia and Latin
America. It can easily be seen as an example of articulatory weakening which could have
happened quite independently and so needs no appeal to substrate influence at all.
4.2 The structural theory
The labial articulation of Lat. /f/ as [] in Castile is parallel to that of Lat. /w/ as [] (cf. the
development to [v] in many other Romance languages). (This only explains the first stage of
the change.)
For:
· More consistent with the ‘naturalness’ of the /f/>/h/ change suggested by existence in
other languages (see 4.1).
Against:
• ?// undergoes no parallel subsequent phonetic modification and phoneme split.
4.3 The sociolinguistic theory
Words which apparently do not undergo the change are typical of educated, urban speech,
whereas those which do are typical of popular, rural speech. Any residual irregularity is due
to dialect mixing.
For:
· The existence of doublet developments such as horma and forma.
Against:
• Many apparently popular words fail to undergo the change.
• Why would urban speakers not have used labiodental [f] more consistently and resisted
rural styles of pronunciation?
4.4 Was [f] ‘restored’?
If Lat. /f/ came to be pronounced as [] (see 2.1), how is it that [f] exists in modern Spanish?
Penny’s (1972) suggestion that adstrate influence may be responsible in the shape of the
many influential French and Provençal speakers who came to Castile in the 12th and 13th
centuries. These speakers, who settled in the towns, would have had difficulty in articulating
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Spanish Phonetics and Phonology
The ‘f > h change’ 4
the unfamiliar [] sound and might have adapted it to [f], especially in the ‘difficult’
environments before consonants and the back semivowel [w]. It was in the towns as well that
words of learned origin would have found first acceptance in the spoken Castilian of educated
speakers. Perhaps more significantly, French clerics brought to Castile a new way of reading
Latin aloud (the system of ‘litterae’, see Wright 1982:208-20) through which the labiodental
[f] may have become familiar. Such circumstances might have favoured the adoption of [f]
more generally, and would plausibly explain the many ‘exceptions’ to the f>h rule.
Further reading:
Catalán de Menéndez Pidal, Diego, 1968. ‘La pronunciación [ihante], por /iffante/, en la Rioja del siglo XI.
Anotaciones a una observación dialectológica de un historiador árabe’. Romance Philology, 21, 410-35.
Izzo, Herbert J., 1977. ‘Pre-Latin languages and sound changes in Romance: the case of Old Spanish /h-/’, in
Michio Peter Hagiwara, Proceedings of the Fifth Linguistic Symposium on Romance Languages (Rowley,
MA: Newbury House), pp.227-53
Jungemann, Frederick H., 1955. La teoría del sustrato y los dialectos hispano-romances y gascones (Madrid:
Gredos).
Malmberg, Bertil, 1971 [1958]). ‘Le passage castillan f > h - perte d’un trait redondant?’, in Phonétique
générale et romane (The Hague / Paris: Mouton), pp. 459-63.
Martinet, André, 1951-2. ‘The devoicing of the Old Spanish sibilants’, Romance Philology, 5, 133-56.
Penny, Ralph J., 1990. ‘Labiodental /f/, aspiration and /h/-dropping in Spanish: the evolving phonemic values of
the graphs f and h’, in David Hook and Barry Taylor (eds), Culture in Medieval Spain: Historical and
Literary Essays presented to L.P. Harvey (London: King’s College), pp.157-82.
Penny, Ralph. J., 1972. ‘The reemergence of /f/ as a phoneme of Castilian’, Zeitschrift für Romanische
Philologie, 88, 463-92.
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The ‘f > h change’ 5
5 Appendix: analysis of the sources of Spanish words beginning with f + V
Source: Corominas
‘Maintenance’ of /f/:
Latin learned (popular doublets in brackets):
fanático
fábrica
fascinar
fábula (habla)
fatigar
facción (hacer)
fatuo
faceta (haz)
fauno
facial (haz)
fausto
fácil (hacer)
favor
facsímil (hacer)
favorable
factible (hacer)
favorecer
factoría (hacer)
favorito
factótum (hacer)
federar
factura (hacer)
felino
facultad (hacer)
feliz
facundo
femenino
fagáceo (haya)
fémur
fámulo
feraz
féretro
férreo
fértil
férula
férvido (hervir)
festinar
fétido (heder)
feudo
fíat (hacer)
fiero
figura
fingir (heñir
‘amasar’)
fisco
físico
fomento
formidable
fornicar
fortuna
fosa
fulgor
función
fundir (hundir)
funeral
funicular
furia
fuste
fútil
futuro
Greek learned
faetón
fagocito
faisán
falange
falo
fantasía
faringe
farmacia
faro
farola
fase
fecundo
fénix
fenómeno
fil-
foca
fonético
fósforo
foto-
Arabic
faleba
falúa (?)
fanega
faquir (via English or
French?)
farda
fárfara
fideo (?)
fulano
fustán (?)
French
fagot
falbalá
falsete
faquín
fardo (?)
farsa
ficha
fogoso (?)
forraje
fusil
Catalan
faena
faja (?)
falda (?)
fango
farallón
feble
foja
follaje
follón
fornido
forrar (but
cf.ahorrar)
Portuguese
faca (?)
fandango
farfullar (?)
fayanca
Gallego-Asturiano
farruco
Italian
facha
fachada
Occitan
facistol
farándula
farfante
English
faradio
folklore
fútbol
Possible popular words? (date of first textual attestation in brackets)
falso (10th C.)
faz (also haz) (10th
feria (1100)
falta (1220-50)
C.)
(semiculto?)
falto
fe (also as he) (1140)
fiebre (1220-50)
fallecer (1140)
fealdad
(semiculto?)
falla (1140)
febrero (semiculto?)
fiel
fama (mid 10th C.)
fecha (also hecha)
fiesta (13th C.)
familia (1220-50)
feligrés (1245)
(semiculto?)
feo
fijo (1256)
fin (1140)
(semiculto?)
fino (13th C.)
firme (1140)
fisgar
forma (also horma)
funda (1335)
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Spanish Phonetics and Phonology
The ‘f > h change’ 6
Onomatopoeic?
farra
fofo
?/f/ > /h/ > Ø
Latin popular
haba
hablar
hacer
hacha
hacia
hado
halcón
hallar
hambre
harina
harto
hastial
hastío
haya
haz
hazaña
hebilla
hebra
heder
helecho
hembra
heno
herir
hermoso
hervir
hez
hiel
hierro
hígado
higo
hijo
hilo
hincar
hinojo
hito
hoja
holgar
hollar
hollín
honda
hondo
hongo
horadar
hormiga
horno
hosco
hostigar
hoya
hoz
hozar
huir
humo
hundir
huraño
hurgar
hurto
huso
?
harapo
hato
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