The Phonetic Origin and Phonological Extension of Gallo-Roman Palatalization*

In this paper I discuss the relationship between two sound changes in Gallo-Roman: the fronting of /a/ in stressed open syllables, and the palatalization of /k, g/ before /a/ in addition to /i, e, /. I argue that allophonic Fronting created the original phonetic conditions for Palatalization, but that the phonological structure of the language led to extension of palatalization to non-fronted tokens of /a/, despite the lack of articulatory motivation in that context. The explanation for the change is therefore partly phonetic and partly phonological. Section 1 below provides basic background on the relevant sound changes in Romance and French. Section 2 focuses on the reflexes of Latin /a/, in particular the contexts in which it eventually led to front mid /, e/. Section 3 discusses the palatalization of velars before this vowel, and theories about the relationship (if any) to the change in vowel articulation. In section 4 I argue for Fronting as the essential cause of Palatalization, with spread to all tokens of the category /a/. Section 5 is a brief conclusion.