1

NOTES ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF

-KJ-, -TJ- IN SPANISH AND
PORTUGUESE

Hugh E. Wilkinson

Romance scholars have long been puzzled by the

inconsistencies in the development of Latin -KJ-, -TJ- (that is, C
and T followed by I or E in hiatus) in Spanish and Portuguese,
whereby one word will have ç and another z, apparently under
the same conditions. Many, and conflicting, theories have been
put forward, and the latest, to my knowledge, is that advanced by
Yakov Malkiel, in “Derivational Transparency as an Occasional
Co-Determinant of Sound Change: A New Causal Ingredient in
the Distribution of -ç- and -z- in Ancient Hispano-Romance (I)”
(Romance Philology, Vol. 25, No. 1, 1971), in which he also
refers briefly to previous attempts to solve the problems, and
promises a finer analysis of them in a Second Part, yet to appear.

For the purpose of presenting his theory in sharp outline, as

I take it, he has assumed that the natural reflex of -KJ- and -TJ- in
Hispano-Romance, when unaffected by other factors, was ç, and
that this ç was changed to z in Spanish when it occurred in
segments that were transparently analysable as being used to
form derivatives; according to this theory, the great majority of
word-forming segments in Spanish contain a voiced consonant,
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and so the influence of suffixes like -ado, -ido and the rest has
worked to change -aço, -iço, -eça and the like to -azo, -izo, -eza
and so on, in words where these segments are clearly
recognizable as suffixes.

The assumption he makes is a fair one, which I am not in a

position to refute; as is so often the case in Romance philology,
we just do not possess the factual knowledge to enable us to
reach a definite conclusion one way or another. But in this paper,
to which I have given the tentative title “Notes”, I would like to
present the case for a more traditional approach, based on a
comparison with phonological conditions in the other Romance
languages, partly because I believe the standard procedures have
not all been fully tried and found wanting, and also in the belief
that this may help to answer some of the problems which still
remain unsolved by Malkiel’s theory, problems which, to my
mind, are sometimes caused needlessly by the assumption of the
basic ç reflex. As I see it, it is important to start out from the
most reasonable assumption, otherwise one finds oneself trying
to account for forms which do not need any special explanation,
and on the other hand neglecting to account for others which are,
in fact, anomalous.

1. The nature of the problem. The whole question hinges on

what we think were the natural etymological reflexes of Latin
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-VKJ- and -VTJ- in Hispano-Romance, judging by the evidence

of the other languages, particularly those of the Western
Romance group, to which Spanish and Portuguese belong. In this
case we would expect K and T as single consonants between
vowels to become voiced, so that z would at first sight seem to be
the normal outcome of both -KJ- and -TJ-, as it is in OSp. vezino
< VICINU, now vecino. However, the WR languages all agree
basically in having a voiceless consonant for -KJ-; the traditional
explanation adduced to account for a voiceless medial consonant
is doubling (cf. Sp. cecina < *SICCINA), and it will serve our
purpose quite adequately in this case too to assume that Latin
-KJ- regularly became -KKJ-. So I agree with Malkiel that ç is
the normal reflex of -KJ-, and that a special explanation needs to
be sought to account for the occurrences of z representing -KJ-.
(-CKJ- and -CTJ- both give ç in the normal way, and present no
problems.)

The problem comes with -VTJ-, of which the normal reflex

is far less easy to determine. For one thing, this combination is
not commonly found except in the endings -ITIA, -ATIONE,
-ITIONE, and here, especially in the last two cases, the vernacular
forms are rivalled by learned ones in the Romance languages. In
the case of the vernacular forms, French, Provençal and Catalan
agree on the whole in having a voiced consonant, as in raison,
razo, ra(s)ó; the same voiced consonant is also found in Sp.
(OSp.) razón, Ptg. razão, and it seems to me reasonable to
 4

assume, with Ford and Mussafia, that this is the natural outcome
of -TJ- in those areas where single voiceless consonants were
regularly voiced between vowels. But there are also many
instances in all the languages of -TJ- giving a voiceless consonant
in popular words — not only when preceded by another
consonant — and here I think we may most conveniently suppose
that the -T- was doubled in Vulgar Latin; there are also other
cases where a voiceless consonant is the rule, and that is in
(semi-)learned borrowings. One of the points in which Spanish
and Portuguese differ is in the fact that Portuguese has more
examples of ç, not only in words where Spanish has innovating
-azo, -izo from -ACEU, -ICIU, but in words where Latin has -TJ-.
It is here that I am not happy with Malkiel’s assumption of ç as
the normal reflex; if we take the other position and assume that z
was the natural reflex of -TJ-, and that inherited ç must go back to
-TTJ-, we do not need to go to special lengths to explain the
presence of z in Sp. (agu)-zar, -ez(a), -azón, -izón, thus confining
Malkiel’s anomalous “derivational patterns” to -azo and -izo.
(Malkiel does not make it clear whether he thinks his ç comes
from -TJ- or -TTJ-; if it is the latter, then I must rephrase my
objection and say that I believe Spanish inherited forms with z <
-TJ- as well as forms with ç < -TTJ-, as did the other Romance
languages.) However, at the same time, we shall have to account
for the ç in forms like Ptg. -ação, -ição and others, where these
correspond to Spanish forms with z. In this case, one obvious
explanation is the influence of (semi-)learned borrowings, and in
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my estimation Malkiel has, in certain cases, been led by his basic

assumption to regard as vernacular forms words which more
probably exhibit learned features. Thus Ptg. viço and paço, for
example, seem to me to belong rather with early learned
borrowings like graça, presença, sentença, jeeração, where the
following i has been absorbed into the ç, and so correspond to Sp.
vicio, palacio in the same way as the others do to gracia,
presencia, sentencia, generación. Nevertheless, there remain
certain words, like Ptg. poço beside Sp. pozo, which are clearly
vernacular and yet have ç; one possible course of action here, and
a legitimate one, is to assume that in fact ç was the regular
Portuguese reflex of -TJ-. On the other hand, this goes against the
voicing tendency that we would expect to find in a WR language;
and at the same time there are enough instances of voiceless
consonants in other languages in words containing Latin -TJ-, as I
will show, to make it reasonable (more reasonable?) to assume
that the Portuguese words with ç should be derived from Latin
variant forms with -TTJ-; that is, a word like PUTEU is
represented in Romance by both *PUTJU and *PUTTJU forms, the
second of which is the ancestor of Ptg. poço. This assumption
could be condemned as arbitrary, if only isolated forms were
affected, but we shall in fact see that this concerns a broad range
of words, in fact virtually all the words containing -TJ-, and that
this charge is therefore unjust. In other words, we need not be
afraid of positing a dual outcome of -TJ-. Also we need to
recognize this as a general Romance problem, not limited to
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Hispano-Romance, for which a solution must be sought on a

wider canvas. To sum up, if we take the starting-point I am
suggesting, it will be clear that the factors Malkiel adduces may
well be “co-determinants” in certain cases, particularly where we
find -azo, -izo representing -ACEU, -ICIU, but that they do not
necessarily apply to the other cases he quotes.

2. The evidence of the Romance languages. I would now

like to turn to the evidence of the other Romance languages, to
see what light this sheds on the position in Hispano-Romance. As
I said earlier, it is mainly to Western Romance that we must turn
for our information, as the other languages are less instructive.
Rumanian and Sardinian offer no help at all; in the former the
result is Ń (/ts/) after the accent and ci (/tS/) before the accent in

both cases, while the latter has -θ-, -tt-, -tts- for both, according
to the dialect (kapiθa, puttu etc.). It is true that there are some
exceptions in Rumanian, but these must be due to special causes;
for example, from ERICIU we have ariciu for expected *ariŃ, for
which we may suppose either derivation from *ERICE or
back-formation from *ariciune < *ERICIONE (cf. Fr. hérisson).
In southern Italian, too, the outcome of both is zz. Standard
Italian (Tuscan), on the other hand, is instructive in that it does,
in general, distinguish -KJ- from -TJ-, with cci for the former and
zz for the latter, but it differs in two respects from Western
Romance. Firstly, it does not voice intervocalic voiceless
consonants, and, secondly, it is prone to geminate, so that we
 7

cannot use the Tuscan forms to argue the probable forms in

Western Romance. Moreover, there are a few cases where zz is
found for cci, perhaps in words taken from northern dialects, and
in the case of -TJ- we find sometimes cci (generally in the case of
consonant + -TJ-) and sometimes non-native gi. This confusion
between zz and cci is hard to explain, but as it concerns an
alternation between two groups of unvoiced consonants it is not
germane to our present problem; the presence of gi is to be
explained by the fact that the words in question have come into
Tuscan either from northern Italian dialects or from French or
Provençal — all belonging to Western Romance. Therefore, to
find out what we should expect in Spanish and Portuguese we
must turn to the other WR languages, French, Provençal, Catalan,
north Italian dialects, and Rhaeto-Romance, as well as arguing
from what has happened in the case of comparable consonants in
Spanish and Portuguese themselves.

In these other WR languages, as I said just now, we

generally find a voiceless consonant, ç or ss, for -KJ-, that is,
-KKJ-; for -TJ- we find sometimes ç (ss), in which case we can
assume etyma with -TTJ-, and sometimes voiced z (s) (later
vocalized in Catalan), which may be regarded as the normal
outcome of ungeminated -TJ-. (Words like FACIE may prove an
exception to the rule; here it seems likely that -CIE developed
partly to -CE without giving off a yod — cf. App. Prob. “FACIES
non FACIS” and the development of FACIENDA to Ptg. fazenda
 8

or of PARIETE to Sp. pared — so that -C- developed in the

normal way to z.) Arguing from this standpoint, we shall, with
Malkiel, look for a special explanation when we find z in Spanish
where the other languages have ç, coming from -KKJ-; but more
especially we shall need to probe deeper into the various
outcomes of -TJ- in the different languages, which do not fit into
any neat pattern.

3. The outcome of -KKJ-. Let us now examine each pattern in

turn, taking first those examples of -KKJ- where there is
agreement among the different languages. Firstly, we have a
good model in BRACCHIU, where the double consonant is
attested in Latin; this gives Sp. (OSp.) and Ptg. braço, Cat. braç,
Prov. bratz, Fr. bras (and note NFr. (Norman and Picard) brach
with ch, which is important to our argument later on), NIt.
brazzo/bras, Rh. bratsch, with It. braccio and Rum. braŃ, Sard.
rattu (‘twig’). Here the effect of the presence of the double
consonant is evident, and it is even more so if we take the
reflexes of BRACCHIA: Sp. (OSp.), Ptg., Cat. braça, Prov. brassa,
Fr. brasse (brache), NIt. brazza/brasa, Rh. bratscha, It. braccia,
Rum. braŃe. A similar outcome is seen in the case of VICIA: Sp.
veza, Cat., Prov. vessa, Fr. vesce (veche), NIt. vessa, Rh. vetscha,
Friul. vece, It. veccia, SIt. vizza. Likewise we have from
LAQ(U)EU: Sp. lazo (cf. Alex.O enlaçadas), Ptg. laço, Cat. llaç,
Prov. latz, Fr. laz > lacs, NIt. lazzo, It. laccio, Rum. laŃ, Sard.
lattu. There is also another word widely represented, the adj.
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COCC-EU, -EA, with a range of meanings including

‘seed-covering, husk, shell, pot, tub, cranium’, supported also by
*POST-COCCEU in Iberia: Sp. cueço,(1) pescueço (this is the OSp.
form, as are others below with ç), Ptg. pescoço with coch-o/-e,
cocha evidently related, Cat. cossa, cossi, Prov. cos, cossa (and
cossi ‘oak-gall’?), Fr. cos, cosse (coche), It. coccio, coccia, with
Sic. cozzu.

With these we may reasonably align PITTACIU, which is

recorded in the Mulomedicina Chironis as PITACCIUM, giving
Sp., Ptg. pedaço, Cat. pedaç, Prov. pedas, It. petaccia, petazza,
with Sic. pitazzu (absorbed in French by pièce, but cf. Eng. patch,
perhaps representing an ONFr. *pëach). The fact that we have
PITACCIUM recorded for PITTACIUM lends support to our
supposition that the Latin suffix -ACEU must have become
*-ACCEU, to judge from the evidence of Romance. Thus we have,
from SAETACEU, *SAETACCEU: Sp. cedaço, Ptg. sedaço, Cat.
cedaç/sedas, Prov. sedas, Fr. s(e)as, NIt. sedazo, Rh. sedatsch,
with It. staccio, Sard. seda-ttu/-ttsu/-θθu. These words show the
typical reflexes of the Latin -CEU (-CIU), with Spanish (Old
Spanish) having a voiceless sibilant like the rest (spelt ç). Similar
agreement is seen in Sp. (sobre-)pelliça, pelliçon (Cid), beside
Ptg. pelliça, Cat. pelliça (and pellicea, pelliçone, subrepelliceo in
a text of the year 986), Prov. pelissa, Fr. pelisse, NIt. piliçon, It.
pelliccia; also Sp. coraça, beside Ptg. coiraça, Cat.
cuyraça/cuirassa, Prov. cuirassa/coirassa, Fr. cuirasse (for
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earlier cuirée), NIt. corazza. However, here we may have to do

with borrowing between the various languages, although all the
words in each set have developed as if they were native words,
and in the case of pelliça and its cognates the process would have
to have been an early one. We also find a partial correspondence
between Sp. picaça/pigaça and Ptg. picanço, picaço, picaça,
pigaça, Cat., Gasc. pigassa, Prov. picas, where we see a common
root PIC-U/-A sometimes crossed with *PICC-ARE. The same is
true for Sp., Ptg. carniça, encarniçar, Cat., Prov. carnissa, beside
It. carniccio, OSard. carniçu (cf. also Sp. carnicero, Ptg.
carniceiro, Cat. carnicer); but in this case there is a wider range
of cognates for late mediaeval Sp. carnaça,(2) for which carnaza
seems to be the usual form.

This last case is typical of the situation in Spanish, where

the evidence for ç is doubtful, to say the least, and where -azo,
-izo seem to be the normal forms rather than -aço, -iço. In fact,
for the mass of words Malkiel only refers to forms with z, but in
an earlier article, “The Two Sources of the Hispanic Suffix -azo,
-aço” (Language, Vol. 35, No. 2, 1959), he lists old alternative
spellings with ç: fornaça, fogaça, fenaçal, estropaço, ceraça,
laço, enlaçar, mordaça, OLeon. menaçar (he need not have
limited this form to the west, as amenaças is found in LBA 415,
admittedly in rhyme with equally ambiguous enlaças, mordaças,
tenaças, while a late 15th-century Aragonese text, which could
have been expected to keep ç and z distinct, has menaça,(3)
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lluma-ço/-ça, pelaça, ribaço, pelmaço, filaça, espinaça, linaça,

carraço, besides the coraça given above (once more in the LBA,
st. 924, in rhyme with maça, pycaça, almohaça, where the value
ç seems certain). We may also note here paniçero(4) (cf. It.
paniccio) in the Yúçuf, which generally seems to keep ç and z
distinct, and incidentally has pozón (see below). In the above
cases Malkiel evidently felt -aço to be Western, while the East
had -azo, but he points out that the spelling of these texts is
unreliable, as ç and z are liable to be used interchangeably, and
he now seems to have come to the conclusion (and here I must
trust his judgment) that in the majority of cases the spelling z
corresponds to the actual pronunciation. I will take up this point
again later on, but in any case it seems clear that Spanish had ç to
begin with like the other languages, and that the change to z was
a later development; one could of course say that there is no
problem and that the Spanish forms go back to -ACEU, -ICIU with
a single C, which became z in the normal way, but this position
hardly seems tenable in view of the pan-Romance situation and
the occurrence of -aço, -iço in Spanish itself in cases where the
value of ç seems to be unambiguous. But meanwhile let us
continue to look at other cases where the WR languages agree in
having ç.

4. The outcome of -TTJ-. The next group we need to consider

are those words that in Latin show -TIU, -TIA etc., but which
behave consistently in Romance as if they had *-TTIU, *-TTIA.
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Looking at the Spanish forms alone, Malkiel is reluctant to

accept the idea of “local lengthening” of the consonant “at the
provincial Latin phase”, but the incontrovertible evidence of the
consensus of the Romance languages shows that this is not a
purely local phenomenon. (Incidentally, Malkiel reveals an
inconsistency in his whole approach here, if I read him right, as
his thesis depends precisely on the assumption of local
lengthening at the provincial Latin phase, not only in this but in
every case, to give an original ç; and the fact that this ç is
preserved in this group of words should not bother him, as they
do not contain any segment analysable as a suffix.) And once
again we have Latin evidence of doubling in MATTIANUS beside
MATIANUS, providing the basis for Sp. ma(n)çana, Ptg. maçã,
Cat. toponym La Maçana, Prov. massana, and Fr. (OFr.)
macienne. Other examples are S1NGULTARE crossed with
*SUBGLUTTIARE (related to GLUT(T)IRE with -TT- attested) in
Sp. solloçar, Ptg. soluçar, It. singhiozzare (Rom. selluzzo, Neap.
sellozzare, Sic. sugghiuzzu), Rh. sughiŃa. A similar group of
words consists of those coming from *CAPITT-IU/-IA/-IALE: Sp.,
Ptg. cabeço, cabeça, cabeçal, Cat. cabeç, cabeça, capçal, Prov.
cabes, cabessa, cabessal, Fr. chevez, chevece (NFr. caveche, with
ch as in the -KJ- words), cheveciel, NIt. cavezzo, cavezza,
cavezzale, Rh. (Surs.) cavez, (Eng.) chavezza, It. capezzo,
capezza, capezzale, Sard. capitha, Rum. căpăŃ-înă. Another
group comprises *MATTEA and *MATTEUC(C)A with Sp., Ptg.
maça, machuca (this from Mozarabic), OPtg. massuca, Cat.
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maça, Prov. massa, Fr. masse (mache), massue, NIt. maça, Ven.
mazuco, Engad. mazzüc, It. mazza, mazzocca, Rum. măciucă.
Then you have *PLATTEA giving Sp. plaça, Ptg. praça (both
showing less than popular development), Cat. plaça, Prov. plassa,
Fr. place (plache), NIt. plaça/platsa, Rh. plazza, It. piazza, and
*PETTIA giving Sp. pieça, Ptg., Cat. peça, Prov. pessa, Fr. pièce
(pieche), NIt. peza/peça, Rh. pezza/piaza, Friul. piezze, It.
pezza/pezzo, Sard. petha/peza. We also find evidence for
*ARBUTT-EU/-EA in Arag. alborço, Cat. arboç, arboça, Prov.
arboz, arbossa, NIt. (Lig.) arbossa; Fr. arbouse, arbouce seem to
reflect OFr. arboisier (from -TEU) influenced by Prov. arbossa.
Limited to Hispano-Romance we find LAUTIA giving Sp. loça,
Ptg. louça, with the preceding AU, which fell in with AL,
preserving the voiceless consonant (there is evidently no
connection with Cat. loça, Prov. lossa and Fr. louche (a northern
form for earlier louce), all meaning ‘ladle’).

The reasons for the lengthening in each case must belong to

the history of the individual word. *PLATTEA (from Greek
PLATEIA) is usually referred to *PLATTUS ‘flat’ (cf. Fr. plat, It.
piatto etc.), seemingly traceable to Greek PLATYS. There does
not seem to be any substitution of -CI- for -TI- involved, as the
Italian reflexes all have zz, not cci. What is important here is
simply to recognize that these changes have taken place
consistently in quite a number of words, because this will help us
later to understand the similar changes that have taken place
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sporadically. The evidence of the north Italian forms in particular

is important, as we shall find many similar examples later.
Rohlfs(5) says that the spelling of the old texts is not always a
clear guide, but in my judgment it is clear enough; it is true that ç,
z and x, s may represent either voiced or voiceless sounds, but the
pairs are always clearly contrasted, with ç, z used for an affricate
(/ts/ or /dz/) and x, s for a fricative (/s/, /z/ or /S/, /Z/). In

Uguccione, for example, we can find faça, plaça, maça clearly

contrasted with palasio, rason, mason, segus (= pl. segugi), or, in
Barsegapè, grandeça, menaça as against raxon, caxona/casona
(= accagiona), and we may reasonably suppose ç to have a
voiceless, and x, s a voiced value.

5. The outcome of -TJ-. Having spoken of this contrast, let us

turn aside at this point and look at the words which contain a
voiced consonant from -TJ- in all the languages. Here we are
immediately brought up short by the fact that there are only two
— RATIONE and SATIONE — which give this result, a fact which
makes Malkiel, and Rohlfs too, suspect borrowing from French;
on the other hand there are other words where the voiced
consonant appears widely, even if not universally. But let us look
at the reflexes of these two words first: Sp. razón, sazón, Ptg.
razão, sazão, Cat. ra(s)ó, sa(s)ó, Prov. razo, sazo, Fr. raison,
saison, NIt. raxon, saxon, Rh. ra(d)schun, saschun (Dolom.
sajiùn), OFriul. raxon (cf. chiançon ‘song’, with voiceless ç), It.
ragione, (stagione), OSard. rathone; not in Rumanian. From this
 15

picture it looks very much as though, if there has not been

borrowing, at least there has been radiation from, or development
within, a limited area, at least in the case of SATIONE. It will be
seen that the standard Italian forms are not Tuscan in origin,
although stagione is uniquely Italian; the expected forms razone,
raçone do occur in Old Italian, but not *sazone, while stazzone
only occurs with a different meaning, ‘stall’. (Other forms,
rascione, stascione, look like false Tuscanizations based on
native forms like priscione, cascione, corresponding to
non-native prigione, cagione, where sci represents -SJ-.) In fact,
stagione hardly belongs here at all, except that it seems to have
taken the place of the old northern saxon and imitated its popular
form, which makes it stand out in contrast with the learned forms
of the corresponding Sp. estación, Ptg. estação, or, for that matter,
Fr. station, all with the original meaning of ‘station of the
planets’, which underlies that of ‘season’. A word connected with
astrology is of course more subject to learned transmission, and
furthermore STATIONE stood in transparent relation to STARE,
which survived in Spanish and Portuguese as an -ar verb, estar,
capable, like all other such verbs, of forming an abstract in
learned -ación; RATIONE and SATIONE, on the other hand, were
isolated from their respective verbs, which died out, and so were
free to develop in a popular way. Anyway, the point at issue is
whether the reflexes of these words are native elements in all the
areas where they appear, or whether they have come in from
adjoining areas; the question is crucial for Portuguese, because
 16

this is the area in which we have very little evidence of a voiced

consonant for -TJ-, but in the other areas this development is
frequently paralleled, and therefore, as far as the phonological
evidence goes, these two words may well be regarded as natives.
This raises the inevitable question, why should Portuguese be the
odd man out, anyway? But more than phonological evidence is
required to settle the point. (Note that Rohlfs says that in north
Italian ž < -TJ is today limited basically to ražon and stažon.)

Let us go from here to a group which also appears with a z

in Portuguese, and that is VITIU, -VITIARE: Sp., Ptg. vezo,
avezar, Cat. avesar (the expected reflex of VITIU in Cat. would
be *veu, cf. preu < PRETIU, but the only veu I can find comes
from VICE or, later, VOCE), Prov. vetz, avesar, OFr. vois-ous,
envoisier, It. vezzo, av-/in-vezzare, Rum. învăŃa. In this case,
Rhaeto-Romance has semi-learned vezi, and north Italian also
stands apart with vezz/ves (and old forms vez, pl. veci, p.p. veçaa
in Pateg), though there is also an old form, invegiamento(6) in an
Apulian document, which seems to rest on a northern form with
a voiced consonant, unless we have here a borrowing from
Gallo-Romance. One possible explanation to account for the NIt.
form is the need to distinguish it from the reflex of VICE, though
here vexenda seems to be the usual form. In any case, we find
here the expected agreement between French, Provençal, Catalan
and Spanish, and therefore it does not surprise me as it does
Malkiel to find Portuguese also in agreement. Malkiel suggests
 17

viço as the native Portuguese form, as against vezo borrowed

from Spanish, but viço is patently a learned form, parallel to
others which we need to study next. In general, in considering
the infrequency of z < -TJ- in Portuguese we need to bear in mind
the fact that the total number of popular derivatives of Latin
words with -TJ- in Romance is very few compared with those of
-KKJ- (when we include later formations using the -ACEU, -ACIA
and -ICIU suffixes), as we have to subtract those for which -TTJ-
is required and also allow for learned reformation.

6. Early learned borrowings. This Ptg. viço is one of a group of

early learned borrowings in which the Latin -TI- is represented
by ç alone without any following i; this is in contrast to later
borrowings which appear with ci, as vicio. Here Spanish has
vicio = both Ptg. viço and vicio (‘luxuriance’ and ‘vice’). This
loss of i can be seen also in Fr. vice, and in OIt. vizo. In the same
way we have, for Latin GRATIA, Ptg. graça, Sp. gracia, for
SERVITIU, Ptg. serviço, Sp. servicio, for IUSTITIA, Ptg. justiça,
Sp. justicia, for SPATIU, Ptg. espaço, Sp. espacio and so on. Here
the comparable forms in Catalan and Provençal are vici, gracia,
servici, justicia, espaci (besides other forms we shall look at in a
minute); in French, vice, grâce, service, justice, espace (so also
the northern dialects); in Italian, vizio (and old vizo), grazia (and
old graza), servizio, giustizia, spazio, all with old alternative
spellings with -cio, -cia in the north; in Rhaeto-Romance, vezi (a
different level of borrowing?) and Surs. gratzgia, Eng. gratzchia
 18

in old texts. In contrast to this development of -TI-, the learned

borrowings of words with -CI- appear with the same consonant as
developed out of -Ce,i- in the inherited words, that is, z (or voiced
s) in WR and c(i) in Tuscan. So we have, from IUDICIU, Sp.
ju(v)izio, Ptg. juizo, Cat. juí/jusesi, Prov. judizi/ju(z)izi, Fr. juis(e),
NIt. çudisio, OIt. pregiudicio; from FIDUCIA, Sp. fiuzia, Ptg.
fiuza, NIt. fedhusia, It. fiducia (cf. Fr. fius). Similarly
GALLAECIA gave locally Sp. Gallizia, Ptg. Galiza. In later
borrowings -CI- was treated in the same way as -TI-, and so we
have, from *SPECIA, Sp., Ptg., Cat., Prov. especia, Fr. espice, It.
spezie (pl.) (and even later, from SPECIE, Sp., Ptg., Cat. especie,
Fr. espèce, It. specie), or, from BENEFICIU, Sp., Ptg. beneficio,
Cat., Prov. benefici, Fr. bénéfice, It. benefizio (and beneficio), or,
from OFFICIU, Sp., Ptg. oficio, Cat., Prov. ofici, Fr. office, It.
uffizio/ufficio (Italian has constantly been affected by the Latin
spelling). But these two types interacted on each other, so that,
for example, for SERVITIU you get Cat. serviy/serve(s)i as
juí/jusesi, Prov. serv-izi/-ezi as judizi, Fr. servise as juise, and NIt.
servisio (and standard servigio) as çudisio; and similarly Cat.
espa(s)i, Prov. espazi (besides popular forms espau, espatz), Prov.
justiz(i)a, Fr. justise. Conversely for IUDICIU we also find Sp.
(Nav.-Ar.) judicio, Cat., Prov. (very learned) judici, Fr. juice
(juisse), It. giudizio, and for SACRIFICIU Sp., Ptg. sacrificio
(OPtg. sacrafi-cio/-ço), Cat., Prov. sacrifici (and Cat. sacrifí,
Prov. sacrifizi), Fr. sacrifice (and old sacrifise), It.
sacrifi-zio/-cio.
 19

The development seen in IUSTITIA also holds good for other

abstracts in -ITIA; so from MALITIA we get (beside popular forms
in -eza etc.) Sp. malicia, Ptg. maiça/meiça (and later malicia),
Cat., Prov. malicia, Fr. malice, It. malizia (ONIt. malicia). In
some cases the forms are archaic, as Sp., Ptg., Cat., Prov. tristicia
beside popular tristeza, or have a different usage, as It. tristizia
(‘wickedness’) beside tristezza (‘sadness’). So also Ptg., Prov.
avaricia (old) contrasts with a popular avareza, now the usual
form, though in Spanish avaricia, like Fr. avarice and It. avarizia,
is the form now in popular use. *CUPIDITIA shows a mixed
outcome. Spanish has semi-learned co(b)dicia and Portuguese
cob(i)iça; Catalan has a similar cobidicia beside popular
cob(es)esa, and Provençal has popular cobes-eza/-essa. French
has covise (cuvise) and covoise, besides a later convoitise
replacing covoitié; -oise could be a popular development of -ITIA,
though it is not the one commonly used, and -ise could be a
popular form extracted from an ending like -CITIA where CI >
*ciei > ci, but on the other hand this -ise is very like the one seen
in juise and justise (for a full discussion of this see Margaret S.
Breslin’s article in RPh., Vol. 22). The Italian forms covidigia,
cuvidigia, ONIt. cubitisia (also cupidigia, OIt. cupidezza) are
very like the French ones, and the -sia agrees with that of
fedhusia, thus making it seem likely that the French -ise is also
learned, unless -si-, like -sgi-, is just a spelling for /Z/ (we also

have to consider the question of outright borrowing from French).

 20

The interesting thing here, from our point of view, is the fact that
neither Spanish nor Portuguese has forms with the popular
ending, as this can be compared in some respects with the
development of PIGRITIA. Here Portuguese has only preguiça
(old priguiça, pegriça), while Spanish has both pigricia, with
OLeon. (Alex. O) pegricia, pegriçosos, and pereza; Catalan and
French have popular forms, pere(s)a and paresse, while
Provençal has pereza, pigreza and pigricia, and Italian has
pigrizia (‘laziness’) and pigrezza (‘sluggishness’). Apart from
OIt. (Veronese) pegro, the adjective PIGRU has not survived in a
popular form, and in many areas it must have been driven out by
PIRU, PIRA (compare It. pero, pera with peritare < PIGRITARE).
But why PIGRITIA did not also survive in a popular form in
Portuguese is a mystery. That the -iça suffix is not popular seems
to me clear; for one thing there is no alternative *pigricia (as no
*cupidicia), and the OPtg. priguiça seems to reflect *pigric(i)a
with -cia > -ça as in graça < gracia, while the pegr-, preg-
forms (and OLeon. pegr-) might reflect a popular root (cf. the
combination of popular cobi- with early borrowed suffix -iça).
Again, though Malkiel speaks of preguiça as the popular
development, the correspondence of maiça to Sp. malicia
(alongside popular maeza corresponding to Sp. maleza) and of
cobiiça to Sp. cobdicia tells me that we should equate
preguiça/priguiça with pigricia/pegricia. -Iça in Portuguese is
quite a rare ending, as we shall see later, and its use here may
have some special significance; was there, for instance, any
 21

church influence at work in the perpetuation of cobiiça, preguiça

rather than more popular forms (perhaps as being two of the
seven deadly sins)?

Under the heading of early learned borrowings we also find

the outcomes of Latin -ATIONE, -ITIONE, which give -ación,
-ición in Spanish, -acion, -icion in Provençal and Old French,
-ació, -ició in Catalan, -azione, -izione in Italian, and -ação, -ição
(with absorption of the i) in Portuguese. There are also some
words taken from the nominative case, such as Sp. cansa(n)cio,
Ptg. cansaço, Sp. bollicio, Ptg. buli-ço/-cio, Ast.-Leon. andanciu,
Am. Sp. andancio, Ptg. andaço, It. andazzo, Sp. aparicio, Ptg.
apariço, Sp., Ptg. prefacio, Fr. préface (fem.), It. prefazio,
Jud.-Sp. genera(n)cio, OFr. generace, and various other Italian
formations in -azzo; we can probably also trace back to the same
starting-point Andal. quebracia, OAr. quebraçados, Segorbe
quebrazas and Fr. crevasse, Prov. crebassa with some other
words in -asse, -assa, as well as Sp. aguacero, aguazal, Ptg.
aguaceiro, aguaçal beside It. guazzo and acquazzone (see
Malkiel, op. cit., Language, Vol. 35-2). This ending and -ITIA we
need to discuss later, when we consider the popular endings and
the interaction between the two. But one thing that appears
clearly here from a comparison of the Spanish and Portuguese
forms is that this -ço in Portuguese is a learned form.

7. Words whose reflexes are partly learned and partly

 22

popular. Before we go on to these popular endings let us look at

some other groups of words where the outcome is varied, and
first a group where, as we saw just now in the case of SPATIU,
there is a popular form in some languages and a learned one in
others. A typical word is PALATIU, which gives Sp. palacio, with
ONav. palaz-et,(7) Ptg. paaço > paço, Cat. palau and
pala(s)i/palaci,(8) Prov. palatz, Fr. palais, It. palazzo and palagio
(from the north), NIt. palaço (rare) and palasio, Rh. palaz (Surs.)
and palazi (Eng.). Similarly from PRETIU we find Sp. precio and
F. J. prezo,(9) Ptg. preço, Cat. preu, Prov. pretz, Fr. pris (now
prix), It. prezzo, prezio, pregio, NIt. pres/preso and presio
(presgio), prez(z)i, Rh. prezi, Sard. prezu; and from PRETIARE,
Sp. preciar and aprezar,(9) Ptg. preçar, prezar and (a)preciar,
Cat. pre(s)ar, Prov. prezar, Fr. preisier, It. prezzare, pregiare,
NIt. presiare, Rh. (OUEng.) apridser, Sard. aprezare. In the case
of PALATIU, the French and Provençal forms present no
problems, being purely popular; in Catalan, too, the popular form
is the usual one, but palai (earlier palasi) and palaci are also
quoted. The It. palazzo is also a regular popular form, while NIt.
palaço shows the same formation as veci, veçaa, requiring -TTJ-.
Palasio (palagio) may be a loan from French, or, if it is a native
word, it must have been influenced by learned forms like çudisio
with syllabic si representing -CI-. Sp. palacio, on the other hand,
like Cat. palaci and Rh. palazi, is a purely learned form, while
palazet, from a dialect closer to Catalan, shows the same popular
development as Cat. palau from earlier *palatz. In view of the
 23

Spanish form, it seems to me reasonable to take the Ptg. paaço >

paço as also being a learned form, with the same ç as we have
already seen in graça, viço, espaço and so on; there is nothing
unusual, either, in the loss of l from an early learned borrowing,
as we see this in words like perigoo, cabidoo, angeo, vigiar,
magua, insua, espadua and so on. In the case of PRETIU,
PRETIARE, again the French, Provençal and Catalan forms
present no problem, and It. prezzo, prezzare are balanced by an
old northern pres, which seems to have come from -TJ- with a
single -T-, while prezio, prez(z)i are purely learned forms. But
presio/pregio, presiare/pregiare present the same problem as
palasio/palagio, in that the si contrasts with the simple s (x) of
words like rason, sason, and points either to learned influence or
to borrowing from Gallo-Romance. In this case the meaning of
presio (‘honour’, ‘worth’) is similar to that of prez in Spanish and
Portuguese, which is a transparent borrowing from Provençal, so
the Italian form may also be borrowed from Provençal, as it
hardly corresponds to Fr. pris (prix), though presiare might be
modelled on preisier. Sp. precio and preciar, and Ptg. preciar,
are purely learned forms, and Ptg. preço, preçar surely
correspond to the Spanish forms, as paaço does to palacio. In the
case of Ptg. prezar, which is the regular form in use today (beside
apreçar), we have to decide whether it is a relic of an old popular
pronunciation or a borrowing; in the absence of any *prezo it
looks rather as if it is a borrowing like prez. (The isolated Sp.
prezo and aprezar are not sufficient in themselves to provide
 24

solid evidence of the preservation of a popular development of

PRETIU in Hispano-Romance.) In Old Portuguese, prezar and
preçar seem to have been used indiscriminately, just as the range
of meaning of It. prezzare and pregiare is similar, and the fact
that, whatever their origins, forms with z and ç could coexist is in
itself also significant.

8. The popular reflexes of -ATIONE, -ITIONE. Next let us take

the suffixes whose learned reflexes we examined just now, and
look at the popular forms, beginning with -ATIONE, -ITIONE.
Here we find in Spanish popular words such as cerrazón,
quemazón, virazón, hinchazón, with the expected z < -TJ- that we
have seen in razón, sazón, still in use, though the criazón of the
Cid has not survived; -izón is represented by OSp. guarnizón,
also in the Cid, OLeon. (Alex. O) trayçón, but forms like this
have likewise been lost, giving way to guarnición, traición with
the more usual ending. (By contrast, though, we find comezón
where we would expect *começón; here I can agree with Malkiel
that a change took place from *-çón to -zón but would put it
down to attraction to a previously existing -azón, which was the
direct reflex of -ATIONE, not being preceded by *-açón. However,
I feel Ptg. comichão(10) is to be compared with cre(s)chão <
CHRISTIANU rather than referred to *comixão.) Now, when we
look at the corresponding Portuguese forms we find only -ção —
cerração, queimação, viração, inchação (and inchaço from the
nominative), criação, guarnição — while only razão, sazão have
 25

the z which is to be expected in popular forms, and which we find

in the other languages. To give examples of these, Old Catalan
has para(z)ons (for the meaning, cf. Sp. paranza), laura(z)ons,
jaccizon, partió, and Provençal liazon, orazon, garnizon, traizon;
French has the -aison (formerly -eison, -oison) seen in fenaison,
venaison, oraison, comparaison, démangeaison (and even
extended to conjugaison, déclinaison), and -ison in other words
like guérison, garnison, trahison, though the suffix still cannot be
called a living one. Italian has hardly any traces of -azzone,
-izzone, these being seen only in a few words like stazzone,(11)
acquazzone and tizzone (besides guazzo, andazzo, codazzo, tizzo
etc. from the nominative). But in Old North Italian there are
forms like pensaxon, carnason, guarison, traison, and today
-agione, -igione are used in the standard language, as in
carnagione, fienagione, guarigione, partigione, these being,
presumably, better equipped to stand their ground against learned
-azione, -izione than the phonetically closer -azzone, -izzone.
Elsewhere too the learned forms have taken over for phonetic
reasons; OFr. -eison, -oison must have become disassociated
from the verb conjugation, while Cat. -aó suffered from advanced
phonetic attrition. Sp. -azón was better equipped to stand up
against -ación, but Ptg. *-azão was very similar to -ação, which
was the result of early borrowing (supported also by nominative
forms like andaço, inchaço etc.); thus we can easily imagine a
blend of *criazão and creação producing criação. This -ação
was further supported by other forms ending in -ição or -Cção
 26

from Latin -CTIONE etc., forms which were not always learned;
thus we have lição, feição, afeição, eleição, correição, destruição,
conceição, canção, torção, punção, whereas Spanish has the
corresponding -çón in only a few words like cançón (Alex. O),
torçón, punçón. Add to this the Portuguese preference for
semi-learned forms (e.g. multidão where Spanish has
muchedumbre), and the homophony of inherited and early
borrowed -ença (a point not spotted by Malkiel), which accounts
for the frequency of -ença in Portuguese where Spanish only has
-encia except in simienza, fimienza, with some other words found
in Alex. O, such as creença, fallença, repentença. (Portuguese
words with -ência are later borrowings.). In the case of -ANTIA
the two languages do not differ so much in the ratio of
-anza/-ança to -ancia/-ância forms. Add too the possible effect
of carnaça on carnação, and the influence of other words ending
in -ção, such as caparação, mação, carapução, cabeção, pellição,
and it is clear that for this particular suffix the odds were
weighted very heavily against the survival of *-zão. Another
point to consider is the fact that the reflexes of -ITIONE containing
a voiced consonant, such as Sp. -izón, Fr. -ison, must have been
remodelled on those of -ATIONE, as intertonic -I- would normally
be lost; cf. OFr. mensonge, parçonier, vençon, besson/boisson
(and norreçon with a vowel of support), Prov. menzonja,
parsonier, Cat. monçonja, parçoner, Sp. parzonero, Ptg. parceiro,
Sard. parthone, It. menzogna, Rum. minciună (these last perhaps
showing loss of -TI- by haplology rather than loss of intertonic -I-,
 27

an explanation which may apply to all the other cases of

-TITIONE). This accounts for the lack of support for guarnizón,
trayçón in Spanish, and means that in Portuguese only the
learned -ição (as -ação) was available. On the Spanish side,
-azón evidently got support also from what may be native
reflexes of -ATIO, as in nevazo, pinchazo, arañazo, OSp. chubazo,
which Malkiel (Lang., 35-2) gives as the base for a new use of
-azo in the sense of ‘a blow with...’. Once again Portuguese
shows no sign of any *-azo, perhaps because it was driven out by
the too similar -aço, which was the learned reflex of -ATIO. All
in all, it looks as if inherited Ptg. *-azo, *-azão succumbed to
learned -aço, -ação, whereas Sp. -azo, -azón were more clearly
differentiated from -acio, -ación and so better able to maintain a
separate existence, especially where the suffix was divorced from
the verb conjugation.

9. The popular reflexes of -ITIA. The second suffix whose

learned reflexes we have already examined is -ITIA, and here,
when we come to the popular forms, we find that in many cases
they must be referred to *-ITTIA, or else that they have been
affected by forms containing the learned pronunciation of -ITIA.
This is especially noticeable outside the Iberian peninsula. Thus
French has richesse, largesse (NFr. riqueche, largueche), leëce
>liesse (and old ledece/ledice in St. Alexis), with the unexpected
voiceless sound (besides richoise, franchise, which may
represent the normal development of -ITIA); Provençal has
 28

belessa, riquessa beside beleza, riqueza (the -eza forms

seemingly preferred in poetry), North Italian riqueça,
belleça/belesa corresponding to standard ricchezza, bellezza, and
Old Rhaeto-Romance (UEng.) algrezzchia, with modern Eng.
belleza, Surs. bellezia, showing that learned influence was not
confined to Spanish and Portuguse. South Italian has other forms
in -ezze, -ezzi < -ITIE, as bellezze, ricchezzi, and -ITIE has also
been suggested as lying behind Prov. fadés, folés etc. When we
come to the Iberian peninsula, we find that Catalan has only
-e(s)a, as in riquesa, belle(s)a, pobre(s)a. In Spanish and
Portuguese the usual type is -eza, as in riqueza, pobreza, but -ez
< -ITIE, as in Sp. viudez, vejez, Ptg. viuvez, is also strongly
represented. These are the only popular types in Spanish (apart
from an irregular riquiza in the Cid, and Old Leonese -ece), but
Portuguese also has traces of -eça, and -ece, -ice, as well as the
-iça referred to above. I have found examples of limpeça,(12)
scacessa(12) (evidently for *scasseça) in Old Portuguese to place
beside the calvareça quoted by Malkiel; -ece, as in velhece,
sandece, ledece, has given way to -ice (velhice, sandice, ledice),
which is similar to -iça (we also find OPtg. lediça), and both of
these endings have a learned look, with their i, as if they are old
learned borrowings in contrast to later -icia, -icie, as in malicia,
calvicie. (Malkiel inclines to the idea that these forms with ç are
the popular Portuguese ones, and that -ez, -eza may have come in
from Spanish; but words like maeza, natureza, with loss of l in
contrast to Sp. maleza, naturaleza, seem typically Portuguese,
 29

and so I feel we may safely place -ez(a) alongside vezo in the

class of native elements.) -Ice is fairly well represented, but -iça
is rare (modern justiça, cobiça, preguiça, with old lediça, maiça,
ladroiça, now ladroice, both of these for *ladroiço <
LATRONICIU, a form of LATROCINIU represented in most of the
Romance languages); though -ice corresponds in usage to Sp. -ez,
and -iça (in one instance only) to Sp. -eza, it is unreasonable to
equate them phonologically, as Malkiel would, in the face of the
broad general agreement between the two languages in the use of
-ez and -eza, and the patent correspondence of Ptg. -iça to Sp.
-icia in the older borrowings, even though we cannot find
examples of Sp. -icie corresponding to Ptg. -ice. The forms in
-eça are too rare for us to be able to base any theory on them, but
-ece is better attested, and the problem is to find where the ç
comes from. This is not solved by simply saying -ece is a
Western form of -ez without accounting for the difference; but if
we turn to our conventional solution we may say we are faced
with a case of *-ITTIE versus -ITIE, just as we have *-ITTIA and
-ITIA. Here we may be justified in adducing the evidence of
*-ACCIE, *-ACCIA, *-ACE having replaced classical -ACIE; in the
case of FACIE, we may see *FACCIE behind Ptg. face, Cat. faç,
Prov. fatz, SIt. facce, *FACE behind Sp., OPtg. faz, Sard. fake,
and *FACCIA behind Prov. fassa, Fr. face, It. faccia, NIt. faça,
Rh. fatscha, Friul. face, Rum. faŃă. Similarly Sp., Ptg. az ‘line of
troops’ < *ACE stand in contrast to Sard. aθθa ‘cutting edge’ <
*ACCIA (It. accia ‘coarse thread’, Rum. aŃă ‘thread’ come from a
 30

different ACIA), and Asturian tšaz, Gal. lazo (if this reflects
*GLACE) to Cat. glas/glaça, Prov. glatz/glassa, Fr.
(ver-)glas/glace, Rh. glatsch/-a, Friul. glace, It. ghiacci-o/-a,
Rum. ghiaŃă, which are all derived from *GLACCIE/*GLACCIA.
Considering that both groups of words show an alternation
between -IE and -IA, we may well say that the development of
-ACIE affected that of -ITIE. And we may even go so far as to
suppose that -ITIE, -ITIA tended to become *-IC(C)IE, *-IC(C)IA,
judging from the confusion (admittedly, inconclusive) we find in
mediaeval Latin, which writes -ICIA for -ITIA (even earlier than
this we find IUSTICIA recorded in an edict of Diocletian at the
end of the 3rd c.), and also -ARITIA for -ARICEA. This latter
confusion is also sometimes reflected in a variation in the
Romance forms; thus, corresponding to Fr. forteresse, or
fortelesce with dissimilation, Provençal has both fortaressa,
fortalessa and fortareza, fortaleza, the last of which was adopted
by Catalan, Spanish and Portuguese. (In contrast, Ptg. calvareça
seems to agree with fortaressa.) In view of this, it is not
inconceivable that this -ICEA affected -ITIA, and in turn -ITIE,
producing the voiceless consonants of Fr. -esse, Ptg. -ece etc. We
also see in Hispano-Romance that -ARĬC-EU/-EA were affected
by -ARĪC-EU/-EA, producing forms like Sp. caballer-izo/-iza,
vaqueriza, porqueriza, hortaliza, Ptg. cavalar-iço/-iça, porcariço,
hortaliça, Cat. hortalissa, in contrast to OFr. chevalerez,
vacherece, porcherece, Prov. vacaressa, ortalessa, It.
vaccareccia, porcareccia, Rum. călăr-eŃ/-eaŃă, lungăreŃ, so it
 31

would also be possible to see a popular origin for Ptg. -ice, -iça
based on a substitution of *-ĪCIE, *-ĪCIA (based on -(AR)ĪCEA)
for -ĬTIA, though the correspondence of -iça to Sp. -icia
(semi-learned) seems to point against this. Incidentally,
substitution of -ĪC-EU/-EA for -ĬC-EU/-EA will also explain Ptg.
cortiça for expected *corteça < CORTICEA (It. corteccia), and
carriço < *CARĬCEU (cf. It. dial. carezza).

10. Popular words derived partly from -TJ- and partly from
-TTJ- forms. In the case of -ITIA we have seen that some of the
Romance languages have forms that require us to posit -TTJ-
instead of -TJ-, while others, including Portuguese, have both;
and in the case of -ATIONE, -ITIONE the forms with ç, which are
peculiar to Portuguese, can be explained by learned influence.
But we now come to a group of popular words in which
Portuguese has only ç representing -TJ-, where Spanish has z; and
once again there is support for the Portuguese forms from other
languages, not on such a large scale as in previous instances, but
still sufficient to make us suspect, as a possible solution, that we
have to do once more with alternative -TTJ- forms in Common
Romance, rather than concluding that ç is the natural Portuguese
outcome of -TJ- with a single -T-. To take first a group of verbs,
we have Ptg. aguçar, esmiuçar, adelgaçar in contrast to Sp.
aguzar, (d)esmenuzar, adelgazar, Cat. aguar, Prov. aguzar,
amenuzar, Fr. aiguiser, (a)menuiser, It. a(g)uzzare, (s)minuzzare
(and the noun minugia, perhaps from French), and also Ptg.
 32

ente(i)riçar corresponding to It. interizzare/intirizz-are/-ire (with

voiced zz), and -içar as an old variant of -izar < -IZARE. Here
there is minimal support for the Portuguese forms in Eng. güzzar
(with adj. güzz) and the Lombard place-name Aguzzano, as well
as in the negative evidence of the absence of *agugiare. In
French too you find the mincier alternative to menuisier (with
minchier in the north, as manechier for manacier <
*MINACIARE); there are also spellings with ss, as ahuissier,
menussier, or puisson for poison, but these do not seem to be
significant as ss is also found in raisson, prisson, plaissible,
where it must stand for a voiced consonant. So we may say that
in these instances the Portuguese forms virtually stand apart, and
we may well wonder whether Portuguese did not once have
*-azar, *-izar, *-uzar, which were then affected by the
numerically superior suffixes -aço, -iço, -uço, as well as verbs
like caçar, traçar, abraçar, a-/en-dereçar, destroçar. (I am
leaving out of the reckoning the reflexes of *COMINITIARE (Sp.
començar, Ptg. começar, Cat. començar, Prov. comensar, Fr.
comencier (comenchier), Rh. cumanzer, NIt. començar, It.
cominciare/comenzare) because they behave as if they come
from *COMINTIARE. Granted, Ptg. começar, backed by an old
form comezou (Nunes, Crest., p. 6), seems to reflect
*COMINITIARE; however, the occurrence of Sp. compeçar, in the
Cid, points to contamination by empeçar of an earlier Ptg.
*començar. Provençal also has comessar with loss of n,
evidently by assimilation, cf. essems for ensems.)
 33

Next let us take a group consisting of Ptg. tição, atiçoar,

atiçar as against Sp. tizón (and tizo from the nominative), atiznar,
atizar, Cat. tió, ationar, atiar, Prov. tizon, (a)tizonar, atizar, Fr.
tison, tisonner, attiser, It. tizzone (and tizzo), tizzonare, attizzare,
Rum. tăciune, tăciuna, aŃâŃa; here, on the other hand, Portuguese
is backed by NIt. tizzón, stiço, (a)stiçare, Rh. tizun, and possibly
by OFr. enticier (entichier), atticier (attichier) and Prov. entissar,
atissar, if these are connected (cf. Engl. entice, (at)tice).(11) In the
next group we have the derivatives of PUTEU, which also seem to
have affected those of POTIONE. Here Ptg. poço stands in
contrast to Sp. pozo (Judeo-Sp. podzu, but note also puçal in an
early Leonese document from Zamora(13) and the use by Alfonso
Х of poço beside pozo), Cat. pou, Prov. potz (v. pozar), Fr. puits
(v. puiser), but is supported by NIt. poço/pozz (vbs. apoçare,
appussa, sapoza), and Rh. puoz (v. puzzar), to which may also be
compared the development seen in Veronese puça for standard
puzza ‘stench’. There is also a Spanish form çapuçar (zapuzar),
which Malkiel traces to OSp. sopozar, and which may or may not
have been affected by unrelated Cat. (and Prov.) cabussar. In
Provençal, too, the verb pozar is flanked by a form potzar,(14)
which appears as p(o)utsà(14) in the modern patois, where we also
find the plural forms p(o)utses(14) for the noun; but this is a
different development from that of -KJ- > ss or that seen in
atissar, and it may be this that led Anglade to derive potz from
the nom. PUTEUS. Be that as it may, we find a more notable
 34

parallel to Portuguese in the northern French dialects, which have

pu(i)ch, puchiet, espu(i)chier and so on, with the development
seen in words like caveche, plache, largueche that we looked at
before; in this case, if both *PUTJU and *PUTTJU are represented
in one language, we shall be less surprised by the contrast
between Ptg. poço < *PUTTJU and Sp. pozo < *PUTJU. (Further
attestation of *PUTTJU is provided by the borrowings into
Germanic: OE. pytt > E. pit, OS. putti > Du. put, OHG. pfuzzi >
G. Pfütze.) Northern French also throws light on one more
feature of Portuguese in that this ch also appears in verb forms
like fach, mench, arch from FACIO, MENTIO, ARDEO; this last is
an analogical form recalling OPtg. arço, perço as faço, senço,
menço, and making it seem likely that peço, meço (for expected
*pezo, *mezo) could also be analogical forms.

In the case of POTIONE we have OPtg. poçon (m., as Fr.

poison) beside f. poçonya, peçonha and derivatives with ç, as
against Sp. pozón (Alex. P, and Yúçuf), poçón (Alex. O, and
Alfonso), po(n)çona (occasionally pozoña),(15) Prov. pozon, Fr.
poison (puisson, puzon, poinzon etc., with evident assimilation to
puits), NIt. posone, pogione (the south has puzzune, and puzzu
‘well’), and Rh. puschun (with a voiced consonant in contrast to
tizun). In the case of Spanish, pozón seems to me the expected
form, and the others show interference. There may have been
influence from the (rarely attested) form poço (Malkiel speaks of
the possible influence of *poço/pozo on goço/gozo) which
 35

became associated with it, or pozón might have been affected by

poción; the forms with -n- would also naturally fall into place
with a ç, following the example of punçón, cançón, and the Fr.
poinzon shows that we must allow for a more widespread
insertion of n, with the possibilities which that brings for
identification with words with -NTJ-. The Ptg. poçon > poção
also matches poço, but may equally reflect some influence,
perhaps, from other nouns in -ção (was there once a popular form
of cocção, paralleling Fr. cuisson ?).

In general, what we can deduce from all this is that it is not

arbitrary to suppose a twofold development of -TJ- in Portuguese,
with doubling of the -T- in certain cases to provide ç rather than z.
Conversely, what we must not say is that Portuguese ç in popular
words corresponds to z in other languages; it corresponds to ç in
other languages (all coming from -TTJ-), but with the simple
difference that the distribution of ç and z differs from case to case.
I say this with confidence, because we must believe that Western
Romance /ts/ coming from -TJ- developed to /dz/ in the same
way as /ts/ coming from -Ke,i-, so that Ptg. vezo from VITIU is as
natural a development as vezes from VICES. This tendency for
Portuguese Latin to double the consonant is also seen in the case
of -DJ-, -GJ-, so that we have vejo, sejo, fujo as against Sp. ve(y)o,
se(y)o, fuyo, a doubling that also appears sporadically elsewhere,
cf. It. veggio, seggio, fuggio, Prov. mieg, Cat. mitg. But equally
we may find traces in Portuguese of forms without doubling, as
 36

meio, raio (with both raia and raja), ensaio, so that it is equally
possible to believe in a double outcome of -TJ-, especially given
the evidence of the other languages. In fact, though there is a
body of words (*CAPITTIU etc.) where doubling is found
consistently, there are virtually no words where a voiced
consonant is found in every language, even though the majority
have one; we need not be unduly worried, therefore, if
Portuguese shows sometimes z and sometimes ç in a different
distribution from Spanish, especially when we consider that the
hesitation goes right back to Latin times, as seen in the use of -TI-
for -CI- and vice versa (SOLATIUM for SOLACIUM, cf. Prov.
solatz, solassar, OFr. solas, solacier (solachier) reflecting the
latter, and PECIOLUS for PETIOLUS below). In view of all this,
we also need to question whether the fluctuation between ç and z
in Spanish simply represents a confusion of orthography, or
whether there are also underlying variations in the pronunciation,
with, say, the use of the pronunciation -azo for -aço gradually
spreading from word to word. At the same time we need to be
clear that there is no need to suppose that z has replaced earlier ç
in Spanish words derived from Latin words with -TJ-, as Malkiel
would have it when he posits *avareça, *adelgaçar etc., though
there may sometimes have been doublets like poço/pozo, as
elsewhere.

11. Spanish -azo, -izo. We now come to the cases where Spanish,
and occasionally Portuguese, has z for expected ç from -KJ-.
 37

Malkiel neatly accounts for some of them; for example, the rise
of -rz-, -nz- from -RGe,i-, -NGe,i- and the suffix -zillo from
-ICELLU changed arçón, cenceno to arzón, cenzeno, while the
latter spread its influence to OGal. anzella, and to anzuelo, OPtg.
anzol from *HAMICEOLU, which contrast with Gal. amocelo.
Azero for *acero (but note Alex. P açero), and also OPtg. azeiro
beside aceiro, have been affected by az, whose development we
looked at just now. But these are just isolated instances, and the
bulk of the cases we need to look at concern words with -azo,
-izo in Spanish. (Portuguese has -zo, -za rather than expected -ço,
-ça in borrowings like granizo, gozo, granza (beside garança),
though I also note an alternative reading lazes for laços in Nunes,
Crestomatia Arcaica, p. 48.) These words are at the core of
Malkiel’s theory, and while I feel that attraction to other suffixes
containing a voiced consonant, as he makes out, may have played
a part, I would prefer to speak of an extension of previously
existing -azo, -izo suffixes, rather than the creation of new ones,
to replace *-aço, *-iço in the cases where “derivational
transparency” is in operation. (But actually in his thesis there are
also cases where primitives are involved, and some of those
words he lists as containing transparent suffixes, such as
amenazar, can hardly be considered so in the context of Spanish
alone.) The -azo, -izo suffixes I refer to come from -ACE, -ICE >
-az, -iz, with -o (or -a) added to characterize the gender, a point
which Malkiel mentions, but does not emphasize. But in his
previous article, to which I referred in § 3, he points out the
 38

relation between -ACE, -ICE and -ACEU, -ICEU, thus FORNACE

and FURNACEUS. And the same kind of relationship can be
observed in other cases affecting the Romance development, such
as LYNCE, LYNCEA (*LUNCEA), the latter giving the modern
words for ‘ounce’ in the various languages, CALCE, CALCEA (Sp.
coce and calça), BILICE, TRILICE and LICIU (French has treillis
from *TRILICIU for TRILICE, while Italian has both traliccio and
(in) tralice), and late Latin BIFACE (Fr. biais) beside FACIE,
while we may also note the etymological relationship between
LAQUEU and LAX, LACERE. Nor must we forget the contrast that
would have arisen between forms like TENACE, CAPACE,
MINACE and the neuter plurals TENACIA, CAPACIA, MINACIA,
which would have developed as having -KKJ-, other things being
equal; but no doubt the tendency would have been to level out the
differences in favour of a single -K-, which would lead to -az,
-aza in Spanish. To return to our first example, we have from
FORNACE, with gender characterization, Sp. fornaza beside
fornaz, Fr. fournaise for fournais, and It. dial. fornasa/fornaxa
beside standard fornace (Cat. fornau and Prov. fornatz are
uncharacterized). Beside fornaza it is easy to understand the
development of fornazo for *fornaço, which contrasts with
another word fornacho coming from Moz. furnač.

Other words also appear in various forms. Menéndez Pidal

quotes Ast. llimaz from LIMACE beside Cast. limaza, and other
forms limaco, lumiaco, llimiagu; here we may compare Cat.
 39

llimac, Prov. limatz/limassa, Fr. limas/limace and It.

limaccia/lumaca, showing the variants -ACE, -ACU, -ACEU.
Beside (sobre)pelliça there is also sobrepelliz, corresponding to
Fr. pelisse, sourpelis > surplis, Prov. pelissa, sobrepelitz. Other
variants found in Spanish are torc-az/-aza/-azo (-aço, -aça),
tenazes (Ast. tiñaces)/tenazas (cf. OFr. tenais, Sard. tenaghe) <
TENACE, rapaz/rapaço (< RAPACE), and capaza/capazo (-aço)/
Ast. capaz/cabazo (cf. Ptg. cabaz) with capach-o/-a from
Mozarabic, paralleled by Cat., Prov. cabas and Modenese cavace
(< CAPACE); we may also mention here mord-aza/-aça, which
Malkiel refers to MORDACE. However, in the other languages we
find Ptg. mordaça, Cat., Prov. mordassa, Fr. (northern?)
mordache (but It. mordacchia influenced by the suffix of
TENACULA), so we may be dealing here with the neut. pl.
MORDACIA. (Old Portuguese also has tenaças for tenazes (both
with non-native -n-) and fornaça; here we can assume
substitution of the usual Portuguese suffix -aça < -ACEA.) Other
similar words with a final vowel added to characterize the gender
are carrizo, tomiza and romaza; here we can also find in Italian
dialects caréz(z)a (and carez, carèse), rómbicia, roncia, where
standard Italian has cárice, tómice, róm(b)ice. A different
situation is seen in Sp. corteza beside Ptg. cortiça, where the
starting-point is CORTICEA (cf. It. corteccia) rather than
CORTICE; here the expected *corteça has perhaps changed to
corteza by taking the z from the reflex of CORTICE (which
survived in Mozarabic as corti-che/-cha, cf. Neap. cortece),
 40

whereas Ptg. cortiça, like carriço, shows the substitution of the

-ĪC-EU/-EA suffix for -ĬC-EU/-EA, as seen earlier. (The other
languages generally derive their word for ‘bark’ from SCORTEA,
but confuse *EX-SCORTEARE and EXCORTICARE.) The
confusion of -ĬC- (-ĒC-) and -ĪC- is widespread, and is also seen
in Fr. souris, brébis from SORĬCE, VERVĒCE and It. dial. rádica
from RADĪCE. In conclusion, to sum up this section, we may say
that it seems highly likely that the Spanish use of -azo, -izo for
*-aço, *-iço came from a confusion with -az, -iz, to which -o, -a
were often added to characterize the gender, whereas in
Portuguese -aço, -iço, -uço (cf. carduça) were stronger, and not
only resisted this tendency but even affected the -zar verbs,
giving adelgaçar, aguçar, esmiuçar, old -içar etc.

12. An exceptional outcome of -DJ- in Hispano-Romance. The

dual treatment of -TJ- that we have looked at earlier, and its
occasional confusion with -KJ-, may also shed some light on that
of -DJ-, which Malkiel also deals with. We see early variants in
Latin PET-/PEC-IOLUS formed from PED-, and giving Sp. peçuelo,
It. picciuolo, Rum. picior (the standard word for ‘foot’), beside
Fr. pezuel, (16) Prov. pesol,(16) and Sp. peçón, It. dial. pezon from a
variant *PEC-IONE. I have also found (in the Oxford Dictionary
of English Etymology, s. v. barouche) a late form BIRODIUM for
the *BIROTIUM given as the etymon for It. bi-/ba-roccio, which
seems to go back to a form with -KJ-. These words may provide a
clue to the apparent substitution of -TJ-, -KJ- for -DJ- in Spanish
 41

and Portuguese words like goço (gozo), baço, raça. Here goço
is evidently the original form and gozo may be remodelled on
pozo; Sp. goço < GAUDIU (attested in Alex. O) matches Ptg. ouço
< AUDIO (cf. the other 1st pers. forms above) and Leon. oça
beside ozo, oza, and resembles loça, Ptg. louça < LAUTIA, as
well as loçano, Ptg. loução, which probably go back to a root
*FLAUTJ-. In other cases we may see a substitution of familiar
-TIA for unfamiliar -DIA, as in Sp. grança, vergüença, verça
(now berza) from GRANDIA, VERECUNDIA, VIRIDIA (here we
find Ptg. grança, vergonça, verça; also fronça/frança <
*FRONDIA), or -TEOLU (-CEOLU) for -DEOLU in Sp. orçuelo <
HORDEOLU (Ptg. torçol/terçol/treçol and torção; crossed with
*TRITICEOLU, TORTIONE?). In this case there may have been
confusion with URCEOLU, as Rumanian has ulcior ‘stye’ (cf. It.
orzaiuolo) beside urcior ‘jug’, as It. orciuolo. The simple
HORDEU is also represented in Spanish and Portuguese, with a
voiceless consonant appearing in some forms: Moz. uarso,
uaryo,(17) (cf. horchata, also from Mozarabic), OGal. orjo.
Elsewhere we find Cat. ordi, Prov. ordi, orge, Fr. orge, It. orzo,
Rum. orz. This substitution would presumably have taken place
at the Latin stage; we have already seen how, at a later stage, -nz-,
-rz- were substituted for -nç-, -rç-, a change matched in Italian by
that in garzone (= Fr. garçon) and Tuscan scorza < SCORTEA
with voiced z, though Sp. grança, vergüença etc. are paralleled
by It. pranzo < PRANDIU, with voiceless z in some areas.
(Incidentally, Sp., Ptg. grança ‘siftings’ must not be confused
 42

with g(a)rança, granza ‘madder’, which come from Germanic

via Fr. garance.)

In conclusion, as I indicated in the title of this paper, these

are no more than notes on a vast subject, and I cannot claim to
have reached a final solution to the problems involved, but I hope
I have shown that the range of agreement between
Hispano-Romance and the other branches of Romance is so great
that the evidence of the latter cannot be ignored in making an
assessment of the Spanish and Portuguese forms. I have also
attempted to show that we may be justified in positing z as the
normal outcome of -TJ-, making Portuguese and not Spanish the
language that shows a secondary development in this case, either
by adopting variants with -TTJ-, or by substituting (semi-)learned
suffixes, to give forms with ç.

Note. I would like to add a postscript about some of the

words for which Malkiel has suggested his own etymologies.
Firstly, coraçón (Moz. quračún) seems to me, as it does to
Corominas and others, naturally to reflect *COR-ACEU-ONE; cf.
OPtg. coraçudo, It. coraccio and Prov. coras(18) with modern
couras, courassoun, and Italian nouns in -accione, particularly,
in this case, It. dial. corazzone ‘man of great heart’.
 43

In the case of açor, whether or not ASTURE comes into the

picture, we are bound to see ACCEPTORE as the original of the
acetore of the Gl. Sil., and also of the adtores in l. 5 of the Cid,
and the derivative (a)cetrero.
.
For rezio from RIGIDU, I would like to plead for a
widespread Romance variant *RICIDU, perhaps by
contamination with RECE(N)S. Here Rumanian has the group
rece ‘cold’, răcoare ‘coolness’ and (se) răci ‘to cool, get (catch)
cold’ (cf. Sp. arrecirse); we also find in Sardinian the noun
arregore/arragore ‘frost’, which I suspect shows g for earlier c
(cf. p.p. arragorau where the t has disappeared, as in figau
‘liver’, which also has g for c). Latin evidence for the change in
meaning is found in the use of RIGORE in the sense of ‘cold’ in
the Mulomedicina Chironis.

References

(1) See D.J. Gifford & F. W. Hodcroft, Textos Lingüísticos del

Medioevo Español, Oxford, 1959, text No. 115, from
Zaragoza, 1400.
(2) See J. Corominas, DCELC.
(3) See Gifford & Hodcroft, op. cit., text No.123. *MINAKKJA
with -KKJ- is Common Romance.
 44

(4) See J. D. M. Ford, Old Spanish Readings, New York, 1906,

pp. 63-4.
(5) See G. Rohlfs, Historische Grammatik der Italienischen
Sprache und Ihrer Mundarten, Bern, 1949-54, § 290.
(6) See E. Monaci, Crestomazia Italiana dei Primi Secoli,
Rome, 1955, text No. 571, 1. 23.
(7) See Gifford & Hodcroft, op. cit., text No. 69, from Tudela,
1244.
(8) See P. Bec, Manuel Pratique de Philologie Romane, Vol. I ,
Paris, 1970, p. 492, and F. Mistral, Lou Tresor dou Felibrige,
Avignon, 1878-86, s. v. palais.
(9) See Corominas, DCELC. He says prezo comes from
Portuguese, and queries the reading aprezar.
(10) See J. J. Nunes, Compêndio de Gramática Histórica
Portuguesa, 7th ed., Lisbon, 1969, § 47-A-a-2 (p. 144).
(11) See Rohlfs, op. cit., § 289. Besides stazzone, he quotes
stazzo as coming from *STATIU, but it seems to me rather
that it may come from the nom. STATIO, and can be
placed alongside andazzo and the rest. Old northern texts
have staço (Rohlfs, § 290) and staçun (W. v. Wartburg,
Raccolta di Testi Antichi Italiani, 2nd ed., Bern, 1961,
text No. 15, 1. 4), with a voiceless affricate in contrast to
raxon, saxon with a voiced sibilant. This is a rare
example of *-ATTIONE for -ATIONE in a popular word;
could it also be that Ptg. -ação in queimação, inchação
etc. is a popular development from *-ATTIONE,
 45

paralleling the similar development of tição, NIt. tizzon,

Rh. tizun ? The doubling may have started with the
nominatives *STATTIO, *TITTIO.
(12) See J. J. Nunes, Crestomatia Arcaica, 3rd ed., Lisbon,
1943, pps. 177 and 211.
(13) See Gifford & Hodcroft, op. cit., text No. 39, c. 1050.
(14) See Mistral, op. cit., s. v. pous, pousa.
(15) See R. Menéndez Pidal, Manual de Gramática Histórica
Española, 13th ed., Madrid, 1968, §53-4c (p.151).
(16) See C. Battisti & G. Alessio, Dizionario Etimologico
Italiano, Florence, 1968, s. v. picciuolo.
(17) See Rodney Sampson, Early Romance Texts, Cambridge,
1980, text No.13.

***********

This is a slightly revised version of a paper originally published

in Ronshu, Vol.17 (Tokyo, Aoyama Gakuin University, 1976).