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From: mcv@inter.NL.net (Miguel Carrasquer)
Subject: Re: Is Spanish going the way of French?
Message-ID: <CzJ0Fq.Iyn@inter.NL.net>
Organization: NLnet
References: <3a3jbg$dg5@gordon.enea.se> <1994Nov17.220117.23760@vitro.com> <3akuat$8ki@sefl.satelnet.org>
Date: Sat, 19 Nov 1994 17:55:01 GMT
Lines: 54

In article <3akuat$8ki@sefl.satelnet.org>,
pagan <humanist@sefl.satelnet.org> wrote:
>I noticed that some Spanish speakers omit the end of 
>some words. For example, "vamo" instead of "vamos".
>From what I understand, the now unvoiced endings of
>many French words were voiced several hundred years
>ago, and are now only written. Is Spanish heading
>in this direction and why the French endings dropped
>from speech?
>
>Thanks, hope this seems coherent...just woke up.
> 

Syllable-final (and especially word-final) consonants
have a universal tendency to drop.  In Spanish, final
consonants are the exception rather than the rule, since
most words end in -a, -o or -e.  When words *do* end in
a consonant the following changes may occur:

-b	-f   A kind of trendy cafe's in Spain is called
	<>   "pub", pronounced [paf].  "Club" on the
	     other hand is [klu].

-c	<>   Fr. cognac > Sp. con~ac [kon~a'] 

-d	-z   Madrid [maDriD], often pronounced 
	<>   [maDriT] or [maDri]

-j	<>   reloj [relo']

-l	-l   this sound is pretty stable, except in
	     parts of Andalusia, whre it becomes -r

-m	-m
-n	-n   Both nasals tend to drop with nasalization
             of the previous vowel (Andalusia), or merge
	     to [N] (i.e. English "ng").

-p	<>
-t	<>   Final -p and -t, like -c, tend to drop (both
	     are very rare)	     

-r	-r   Final -r is pretty stable.  It can become
	<>   fricative instead of flapped/trilled, and
	     drop in some words: joe' (< joder)

-s	-s   Final -s becomes -h in large parts of
	-h   Southern Spain (Andalusia, etc.), and
	<>   can also drop.

-- 
Miguel Carrasquer         ____________________  ~~~
Amsterdam                [                  ||]~  
mcv@inter.NL.net         ce .sig n'est pas une .cig 
