. In intervocalic position short consonants were prone to extensive lenition, involving voicing, fricativization, and sometimes total loss, with significant variation between and sometimes within regions: i. -[p]- > -[b]- > -[v]- > Ø, e.g. Rmg. [ʃaˈvoŋ], Mil. [saˈũ],Ven. [saˈoŋ] < saponem ‘soap’;ii. -[t]- > -[d]- > -[ð]- > Ø (although in the absence of apocope of the following vowel, restoration as [d] is common, especially in Lombard and Venetan, or as a glide in Piedmont), e.g. Gen. [veˈɲyu], [veˈɲya] ‘come.pst.ptcp.m/fsg’ < *veˈnutu/-a, Mil. [senˈti], [senˈtida] ‘heard.pst.ptcp.m/fsg’ < *senˈtitu/-a, Vnz. [maˈɲa], [maˈɲada] ‘eaten.pst.ptcp.m/fsg’< *manduˈkatu/-a, but the nearby dialect of Burano has msg [maˈɲao] ~ fsg [maˈɲa], while urban Veronese has [maˈɲado] ~ [maˈɲada] (Marcato and Ursini 1998:306);iii. [k] > [ɡ] > [ɣ] > Ø in Piedmont, if in the vicinity of the front vowels, [i], [y], [ø], e.g. Lmb. [furˈmiɡa], Ven. [forˈmiɡa], Pie. [fyrˈmia] < formicam ‘ant’. As mentioned above, Latin intervocalic geminates were shortened over the whole area, usually remaining distinct from the original short consonants. Significantly,

In Tuscan, lenition primarily operates as the spirantization known as gorgia toscana (cf. §§14.2.2.1, 40.2.2.1.2): postvocalic /p t k/ are realized as voiceless fricatives [ɸ θ h], as in la pipa [la ˈɸiɸa] ‘the pipe’, dito [ˈdiθo] ‘finger’, and oca [ˈɔha] ‘goose’ (cf. Giannelli and Cravens 1997); in western Tuscany [h] may even be deleted ([voˈaːle] ‘vowel’: Rohlfs 1966:266).

Wilhelm von Schlegel (1767-1845), who also formulated for the first time the program of a historical comparative study of the Romance languages (von Schlegel 1818). Schlegel was responsible for the nomination of Friedrich Diez (1794-1876) to the newly created chair of Romance Philology, and can be considered the founder of Romance studies as a specialized academic discipline. In his Grammatik der romanischen Sprachen (1836), he divides the Romance domain into six languages: two languages in the east (Italian and Romanian, the latter being called ‘Wallachian’), two in the southwest (Spanish and Portuguese), and two in the northwest (Provençal and French). G

Lenition of postvocalic voiceless stops also occurs in central and southern Italy, albeit in a different form, given that /p t k/ are mostly realized as lenes or ‘lax’ consonants [b̥ d̥ ɡ̊], i.e. with lesser articulatory tension and shorter duration (cf. §§14.2.2.1, 16.2.2.1). This feature is typical of the popular Italian spoken in Rome, where hai capito? ‘have you understood?’ is pronounced as [ai̯ ɡ̊aˈb̥iːd̥o

In principle, standard Italian and Tuscan adhere to the eastern pattern, conserving the unvoiced stops (in fact the corresponding Italian words are capra, ruota, formica), but in many lexemes voicing has occurred in the indigenous lexicon: cf. It. riva < ripa(m) ‘shore’, strada < strata(m) ‘street’, lago ‘lake’ < lacu(m) (see §14.2.2.1). In riva, lenition operates both in the dimensions of sonority and openness, given that voicing has been followed by spirantization, as in the corresponding French word rive [ʀiv].

Palatal stops also occur in many dialects of southern Italy as continuants of cl- and pl- clusters: cf. Ba

Turning to obstruents, the most obvious diachronic process is the palatalization of Latin velars c-, g- before front vowels in words such as cēna(m) ‘dinner’ > It. [ˈʧeːna], Ro. [ˈʧinə]. Less common is the diachronic palatalization of the velars c-, g- before /a/, a typical feature of northern Romance (see §39.3.1), which first gave rise to the palatal stops [c ɟ].

. In some southern and central varieties of standard Italian [ʎː] is replaced with [j], so voglio [ˈvɔʎ

Nasality is stable in French and Portuguese, less so in Gallo-Italian. Interestingly enough, it can be shown that nasal vowels were formerly present in some varieties, but that they have changed to oral vowels in the course of history. Catalan is a clear example: forms like bo ‘good’ < bonum presuppose an older nasal vowel which was denasalized. The same can be said with respect to Galician: denasalization is one of the most conspicuous features distinguishing Galician from Portuguese. Front rounded vowels have lost their roundedness in most dialects of Raeto-Romance, except in Engadine (lunam ‘moon’ gives glina in Surselvan, via a stage with a front rounded vowel still preserved in glüna in Vallader).

Italian and Romanian are close to the conservative end of the scale, stress on antepenultimate syllables being frequent (even pre-antepenultimate in Romanian). Spanish and Portuguese occupy an intermediate position, with antepenultimate, penultimate, and ultimate syllable in equal measure; in Catalan and Raeto-Romance, the frequency of antepenultimate stress was reduced drastically, but it still occurs. Occitan has gone one step further by eliminating the antepenultimate position, but it still keeps the contrast between stress on the penultimate and the ultimate syllable.

This binary division is based on several criteria of phonetic evolution, such as the treatment of intervocalic stops and the palatalization of the consonant cluster /kt/. I

specialized academic discipline. In his Grammatik der romanischen Sprachen (1836), he divides the Romance domain into six languages: two languages in the east (Italian and Romanian, the latter being called ‘Wallachian’), two in the southwest (Spanish and Portuguese), and two in the northwest (Provençal and French). G

Romània (e.g. preservation of syllable final -s, lenition of intervocalic stops),

Evidently, while the tripartite classification of Europe is still extremely vague and nebulous, the tripartite classification of Romance is more precise: the subdivision of France into the domain of oïl and oc has remained valid until today; on