LINGUIST List 9.1697

Wed Dec 2 1998

Qs: Phenomena, Lisping Castilian King

Editor for this issue: Jody Huellmantel <jodylinguistlist.org>

Directory

1. Ral Aranovich, radoppiamento sintattico
2. Robin Barr, Lisping Castilian king

I am posting this on behalf of a student who needs help with
radoppiamento sintattico in Italian, or similar phenomena in French or
other Romance languages. Please let me know if you have any
suggestions as to which references we should be looking at, or where
to find good descriptions of the phenomena.


 
Ral Aranovich 
Division of Foreign Languages 
Univesity of Texas at San Antonio 
aranovchlonestar.utsa.edu 
 

One of my students is trying to track down versions of the story that
attempts to explain the correspondence of Castilian /th/ (=theta) to
some cases of /s/ in other Spanish dialects; e.g. "Once there was a
king of Castile who lisped. Eventually lisping also became the
fashion among the courtiers, and, from the court, spread to the rest
of the region."

If you are familiar with a version of this story, we would greatly
appreciate it if you could let us know:

1. Where you heard it, and a citation if possible,
2. The king's name, if any is given,
3. Whether the change is said to be simply from /s/ to /th/, or instead
 starts from some other sound, e.g., an earlier *z, *c, or *ts.

Many thanks for your help. I will of course summarize the responses
if there is enough interest.

Robin Barr
Department of Language and Foreign Studies
American University
Washington, D.C. 20016