In the Romance languages, metaphony was an early vowel mutation process that operated in all Romance languages to varying degrees, raising (or sometimes diphthongizing) certain stressed vowels in words with a final /i/ or /u/ or a directly following /j/. This is conceptually similar to the umlaut process so characteristic of the Germanic languages. Metaphony is most extensive in the Italo-Romance languages, and applies to nearly all languages of Italy. However, it is absent from Tuscan, and hence from standard Italian.
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Italo-Romance languages
Metaphony in the southern Italian languages (those to the south of Tuscany) is triggered by final /i/ and /u/. High-mid vowels /e o/ are raised to /i u/, and low-mid vowels /ɛ ɔ/ are either raised to /e o/ or diphthongized to /je wo/. Metaphony is not triggered by final /o/. The main occurrences of final /i/ are as follows:
The main occurrences of final /o/ are as follows:
The main occurrence of final /u/ is in masculine "count" nouns (< -um).
Metaphony in the northern Italian languages (those to the north of Tuscany) is triggered only by final /i/. In these languages, as in Tuscan, final /u/ was lowered to /o/; it evidently happened prior to the action of metaphony. In these languages, metaphony also tends to apply to final /a/, raising it to /ɛ/ or /e/.
In most Italian languages, most final vowels have become obscured (in the south) or lost (in the north), and the effects of metaphony are often the only markers of masculine vs. feminine and singular vs. plural.
Western Romance languages
In all of the Western Romance languages, metaphony was triggered by a final /i/ (especially of the first-person singular of the preterite), raising mid-high stressed vowels to high vowels. (It does not normally occur in the nominative plural noun forms in Old French and Old Occitan that have a reflex of nominative plural /i/, suggesting that these developments were removed early by analogy.) Examples:
Astur-Leonese
In some of the Astur-Leonese dialects, in northern Spain, a distinction between mass and count nouns appeared at an early stage. Count nouns from Latin masculines preserved the -u (<um) from Latin accusative, while mass nouns from Latin masculines were marked by an (-o), this is traditionally referred to as ″mass-neuter″. In addition, this language marked masculine plurals with /os/ (< -ōs).
In this situation, only masculine singular count nouns developed metaphony as they were the ones marked with a /-u/, while mass nouns and plurals, marked with /-o/, did not. This ending system has only been preserved in central Asturian dialects, and unlike metaphony, which is considered dialectal, has also been included in the standard version of the Asturian Language.
However, at later stages, Eastern Astur-Leonese dialects (Eastern Asturias and Cantabria) lost the u/o distinction in noun gender markers. Some of these dialects also lost metaphony and the noun count/mass distinction altogether, only keeping it in their pronoun systems, others, such as Pasiegu from Eastern Cantabria closed all their mid-vowels in word ending syllables, and relied on metaphony as a means for distinguishing mass/count nouns.
Some Astur-Leonese dialects also presented i-triggered metaphony. It is also considered dialectal, and it is most prevalent in imperatives (durmi < PIR dormi, sleep!), preterites (vini < PIE veni, I came) and demonstratives (isti < esti, this; isi < esi, that). Sometimes it prevents diphthongation (durmi vs duermi, sleep!; curri vs cuerri, run!) by closing the mid vowel in the verbal stem.
Portuguese
Raising of /ɔ/ to /o/ by a following final /u/ occurs sporadically in Portuguese. Example: porcum, porcōs "pig, pigs" > PIR ˈpɔrku, ˈpɔrkos > Portuguese porco ˈporku vs. porcos ˈpɔrkus; novum, novōs, novam, novās "new (masc., masc. pl., fem., fem. pl.)" > PIR ˈnɔvu, ˈnɔvos, ˈnɔva, ˈnɔvas > Portuguese novo ˈnovu vs. novos, nova, novas ˈnɔvus, ˈnɔva, ˈnɔvas. In this case, Old Portuguese apparently had /u/ in the singular vs. /os/ in the plural, despite the spelling ⟨-o -os⟩; a later development has raised plural /os/ to /us/. Unlike elsewhere, this development is only sporadic and only affects /ɔ/, not /ɛ/. Furthermore, the mass/count distinction is expressed very differently: Only a few "mass neuter" demonstratives exist, and they have a higher rather than lower vowel (tudo "everything" vs. todo "all (masc.)", isto "this (neut.)" vs. este "this (masc.)"). In addition, the original pattern has been extended to some nouns originally in /o/, e.g. todo /o/ "all" vs. plural todos /ɔ/ < tōtum, tōtōs.
Romanian
Romanian shows metaphony of the opposite sort, where final /a/ (and also /e/, especially in the case of /o/) caused a diphthongization /e/ > /ea/, /je/ > /ja/, /o/ > /oa/: cēram "wax" > ceară; equam "mare" > /*ɛpa/ > /*jepa/ > iapă; flōrem "flower" > floare; nostrum, nostrī, nostram, nostrās "our (masc. sg., masc. pl., fem. sg., fem. pl.)" > /*nostru, nostri, nostra, nostre/ > nostru, noştri, noastră, noastre.
Sardinian
Sardinian likewise has a distinction between final /o/ and /u/ (again with plural /os/), along with metaphony. In the conservative Logudorese and Nuorese dialects, the result of metaphony is a non-phonemic alternation between [e o] (when final /i/ or /u/ occurs) and [ɛ ɔ] (with other final vowels). In Campidanese, final /e o/ have been raised to /i u/, with the result that the metaphonic alternations have been phonemicized.