Summary

Strictly speaking, palatalization is a phonetic process of assimilation which can generate new palatal phonemes. However, in Romance linguistics, the term is traditionally used to describe any evolution (1) of velar stops preceding a front vowel, (2) of the palatal approximant (also known as “yod”) and clusters involving yod. Therefore, not only does “Romance palatalization” involve a segment which is already palatal, [j], but the result is also not always a palatal consonant: Sometimes it is a dental/alveolar (firstly an affricate, then in some cases a fricative).

The article proposes a two-phase chronology for the early Romance palatalization, with the first phase affecting /kj/, /tj/ and in some cases /k/ and /g/ before front vowels, while the second phase affects other clusters involving /j/. It also draws a distinction between the varieties which show palatalization of velar consonants before front vowels (western Romània, central Italy) and varieties which do not show it or only show it at a late stage (Sardinia, southern Italy, the Balkans).

The Romance data confirm some trends identified in typological literature and in some cases enable more precise descriptions. The consonants most susceptible to palatalization are: regarding the manner of articulation, stops (the most resistant are rhotics); regarding the place of articulation, velars (labials are the most resistant). Geminate segments are also more susceptible to palatalization.