"pĕlle > pielle > piel". ¿Un superviviente de la apócope extrema?
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Universidade de Santiago de Compostela
info
- María Luisa Arnal Purroy (coord.)
- Rosa María Castañer Martín (coord.)
- José M.ª Enguita Utrilla (coord.)
- Vicente Lagüéns Gracia (coord.)
- María Antonia Martín Zorraquino (coord.)
Publisher: Institución "Fernando el Católico" ; Diputación Provincial de Zaragoza
ISBN: 978-84-9911-500-9, 978-84-9911-498-9
Year of publication: 2018
Volume: 1
Pages: 381-392
Congress: Congreso Internacional de Historia de la Lengua Española (10. 2015. Zaragoza)
Type: Conference paper
Abstract
We try to discover the reason why the substantive piel, whose origin is Latin pĕlle , has come into Classical and Modern Spanish with loss of the final vowel /-e/. Our first task will be to analyse the situation of this word in medieval Castilian. We find that in the medieval stage of the language there is coexistence between the etymological variant pielle and the short variant piel, the latter with extreme apocope and subsequent depalatalization of the new finalposition consonant. How can we explain the apocopated variant’s victory? We consider it acceptable to rely on the following phonetic explanation: medieval Castilian speakers apply a phonetic law for adjoining palatal sounds reduction. In pielle the series of four palatal units can be advantageously solved through the extreme apocope and the depalatalization of /λ/ (but not by means of simplifying the diphthong). In the following stage the plural form pieles is created by analogy with the new singular form piel, so that the old series of four palatal phonemes is finally left out of this lexical item.