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Radical-Changing Verbs in Portuguese

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 April 2026

Edwin B. Williams
Edwin B. Williams*
Affiliation:
University of Pennsylvania
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Extract

The development of the conjugation of Spanish verbs of the types vestir, sentir, and dormir has been treated with great skill and resourcefulness by Menéndez-Pidal and more recently by P. Fouché. Neither the theory of Menéndez-Pidal nor that of Fouché for the development, for example, of Lat. vӗstio into Sp. visto, would account for the development giving the same result in Portuguese, because the type of verb (with ē in Lat.) on which Menéndez-Pidal bases his analogy does not fall into this class in Portuguese (e.g., mētio > męco) and often does not belong to the third conjugation (e.g., conceber), while the phonological phenomenon on which Fouché bases his argument, viz. ě > ie, is notably absent from Portuguese.

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Language , Volume 10 , Issue 2-Part1 , June 1934, pp. 145 - 148
Copyright
Copyright © 1934 Linguistic Society of America

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References

1 Manual de Gramática Histórica Española5 114.1.a (Madrid, 1925).

2 On miento, visto, duermo, in Études de Philologie Hispanique; Rev. Hisp. 77. 25–44.

3 Gramática Histórica Portuguesa 291 (Lisbon, 1919). Nunes 292 n. offers another explanation, namely, that in the inf. the radical e became i by assimilation to the i of the ending, and that the change then spread to the whole ind. and subj., thus: vistir, visto, vistes, viste, vista, etc. But this explanation does not account for the ultimate differentiation between visto and vestes. Nunes also suggests that the change from e to i may have been due to the influence of Spanish at a time when a knowledge of Spanish was the fashion in Portugal.

4 A Língua portuguesa e sua Metafonia 122 (Coimbra, 1920).

5 The use of gemer as a typical verb of the second conjugation is justified because most verbs of the Portuguese second conjugation come from verbs of the Latin third conjugation, irregular verbs in -io generally dropping the i, and because verbs which were originally of the Latin second conjugation generally lost the e which would have developed into a . There are, of course, exceptions like tenho, valho, Old Port, manho, moiro.

6 Die portugiesische Sprache in Gröber's Grundriss der romanischen Philologie 1.731 (Strassburg, 1888). Cf. also Gonçalves Vianna, Pronuncia normal portuguesa 57 (Lisbon, 1892).

7 After the fall of intervocalic d in this word, the original radical e became i by assimilation with the i of the ending in weak forms, e.g., *de-expedimus > *despeímos > despiimos > despimos, producing a new radical.

8 Cf. Almeida Cavacas, op. cit. 164 ff.

9 Nunes is aware of the lateness of this change when he says (op. cit. 293) that it must be dated at an ‘época muito posterior à formação do nosso idioma.‘

10 Cf. mětum > Sp. miedo, but Port. medo.

11 Pretonic ę >e in Vulgar Latin; see Grandgent, Introd. to Vulgar Latin 228 (Boston, 1908).