Final Theta in Spanish

[Larry Trask]

David White writes:

>  Should not all Latin 3rd declension nouns
>  in /k/ show up with final theta in Spanish, if "lux" and "pax" do?  I cannot
>  at the moment think of any more, but there must have been more than 2 ...

There were, but I'm not sure they were all that numerous, and anyway
not all of them survived into modern Castilian.  For example, Latin
<ducem> 'leader' should have yielded Castilian *<duz>, but no such
form is recorded, and modern <duque> 'duke' is clearly borrowed
from Old French <duc>, which itself appears to be an analogical form.

Anyway, the history of final /e/-loss in Castilian is a trifle
complicated.  For example, Latin <dulcem> yielded the expected <duz>,
well attested in medieval Castilian, but the variant <duce> seemingly
never disappeared, and modern <dulce> exhibits not only the final /e/
but also an extra /l/ which it picked up somehow.  As for <doce> '12',
from <duodecim>, I confess I have little idea why that /e/ is still
there.

Larry Trask
COGS
University of Sussex
Brighton BN1 9QH
UK

larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk

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