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Is there a particular sound change that would explain changing a word-initial [ʒu] (or alternatively [dʒu]) to [iʒ] before a stressed syllable? Or might this be best explained as dropping the [u] by syncope and adding a [i] by prothesis?

I found this in a couple words of the São Vicente dialect of Cape Verdean Creole, which is related to both Portuguese and other dialects of Cape Verdean Creole:

| Portuguese        | Sotavento Creoles | São Vicente |
|-------------------|-------------------|-------------|
| jogar   [ʒug'aɾ]  | ['dʒugɐ]          | [iʒ'ga]     |
| ajudar [ɐʒudˈaɾ]  | ['dʒudɐ]          | [iʒ'da]     |

This dialect often elides unstressed [i] and [u] sounds in words, compared to other dialects or languages. So a change from [ʒu-] → [ʒ-] (or [dʒu-] → [ʒu-] → [ʒ-]) would make some sense. In other languages I'm familiar with, [ʒda] or [ʒga] would be seen as "unpronounceable", so adding an initial vowel could make sense.

However, this particular dialect elided many (most?) of the initial unstressed vowels present in Portuguese. Many words start with [ʃt-], [ʃk-], [ʃp-], etc. The dialect seems very comfortable with consonant clusters at the start of words: commonly-used words include [tʃga], [pʰta], [fka], and [zbi]. There are other cases of vowel prothesis, however.

Is there another sound change I should be looking at for a possible explanation? Or is ([dʒu-] →) [ʒu-] → [ʒ-] → [iʒ-] the best bet?

(I started to wonder more about this when I heard a speaker of this dialect pronounce a name [iʃ'sɛ] instead of the standard [ʒu'zɛ]. This speaker has both speech and hearing disorders, so isn't representative of all speakers, but the sound change was so similar that I wondered if this is a pattern seen in other languages.)

A couple notes about other prothetic vowels from @KennyLau's questions:

Words that come from Portuguese words starting with "es" plus a consonant generally have no initial vowel (as is common in Portugal), across the dialects of Cape Verdean Creole.

| Portuguese | Sotavento Creoles | São Vicente |
|------------|-------------------|-------------|
| escola     | ['skɔlɐ]          | ['ʃkɔlɐ]    |

Another example of vowel prothesis in the São Vicente dialect is the addition of an initial /a/ in certain words:

| European Portuguese | Sotavento Creoles | São Vicente |
|---------------------|-------------------|-------------|
| mulher [muʎˈɛɾ]     | [mu'dʒɛɾ]         | [am'dʒɛʀ]   |
| melhor [mɘʎˈɔɾ]     | [mi'dʒoɾ]         | [am'dʒoʀ]   |

However, this might not be consistent for all speakers of the São Vicente dialect, as Wikipedia seems to say that these start with a syllabic m, instead of [am].

Dan Getz
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  • Semirelated: In Mirandese (the other official language of Portugal), some unstressed CV(C) syllables have become syllabic fricatives (the most obvious being z- and ç- for Romance des-). These evolved from the elided vowels that, in modern Portuguese, are frequently pronounced voiceless. Your progression of [ʒu-] → [ʒ-] → [iʒ-] seems, at least, incredibly plausible. When you cite [tʃ'ga] / [p'ta], is the [tʃ] and [p] fully syllabic? – user0721090601 Jan 05 '16 at 09:28
  • @guifa to be honest the only one of those 4 examples that I'm certain is 2 syllables is [d'bɔʃ]. The others might not be. Is there an easy way to tell the difference? – Dan Getz Jan 05 '16 at 10:45
  • that can sometimes be a bit harder to peg down. In writing you certainly couldn't and in speech can be tricky because it happens on unstressed syllables, but in a song, it'd ought to be easier: if [tʃ] gets one note, and [ga] another, then it's probably syllabic. If they cram [tʃga] into a single note, then it's likely not. Do you have any clips? – user0721090601 Jan 05 '16 at 18:21
  • @guifa I think I was seeing syllabic consonants where there aren't. I replaced "d'bɔʃ" (which actually has something between the d and b) and updated the other transcriptions. – Dan Getz Jan 06 '16 at 22:06
  • I'll keep looking for musical evidence, but I really doubt there would be sung syllabic consonants. (Aside from maybe in fast speech, I'm not sure if this dialect has any syllabic consonants.) If one wanted to put 2 syllables on one of those words, one would probably choose a different pronunciation from another dialect. – Dan Getz Jan 06 '16 at 22:15
  • @DanGetz Have you any idea how the word "school" is in that language? Does it begin with sk or isk? – Kenny Lau Apr 16 '16 at 15:15
  • "There are other cases of prothetic vowels in this dialect though." such as? – Kenny Lau Apr 16 '16 at 15:26
  • Also, (I'm just curious) what do [tʃga], [pʰta], [fka], and [zbi] actually mean? – Kenny Lau Apr 16 '16 at 15:35
  • @KennyLau from Portuguese chegar (arrive), botar (throw), ficar (stay), and subir (rise). – Dan Getz Apr 16 '16 at 15:41
  • Still waiting for other prothetic examples xd – Kenny Lau Apr 16 '16 at 15:45
  • Maybe that language has a completely different rule of where to add a prothetic vowel. It would help if you could provide more examples. – Kenny Lau Apr 16 '16 at 15:50
  • From the (highly limited) data that I have, the only rule I could inference is this: cvCV -> acCV, CVcv -> CVcv. – Kenny Lau Apr 16 '16 at 15:55
  • Basically, it means that the stress is what determines whether a word has prothetic vowel. – Kenny Lau Apr 16 '16 at 15:56
  • @KennyLau so are you looking for examples without prothetic vowels, too? Did you take the words that formed new initial consonant clusters into consideration? (cvCV → ccV) – Dan Getz Apr 16 '16 at 15:57
  • Oh, I ignored them. So my hypothesis is disproven. – Kenny Lau Apr 16 '16 at 15:59
  • I also thought of voiced vs unvoiced, but this hypothesis is disproven by [zbi]. The point remains: I need more data. – Kenny Lau Apr 16 '16 at 16:00
  • @KennyLau I understand, but I don't think the question body or comments would be the place to dump a large list of words, unless you can direct me to what kinds of words I should find. (Also I should mention if it wasn't clear that I'm not a linguist or student, just an enthusiast, so there's a lot I don't know or might confuse.) There are IPA transcriptions of a number of words in the Wikipedia article, here and here. – Dan Getz Apr 16 '16 at 16:21
  • I'm also just an enthusiast :) – Kenny Lau Apr 16 '16 at 16:22
  • [ʒdam] for ajudar-me? – Kenny Lau Apr 16 '16 at 16:23
  • @KennyLau yes, but that's weird, the Wikipedia article doesn't seem to know of the phenomenon this question is about at all. They also have "mdjor" instead of "amdjor". I originally thought there was no vowel but was corrected by a native speaker to add the "a". Maybe this is sub-dialectal? – Dan Getz Apr 16 '16 at 16:26
  • I can't find a prothetic vowel in your two links? – Kenny Lau Apr 16 '16 at 16:33
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    @KennyLau yeah, that's the thing. These prothetic vowels are apparently not consistent across all the speakers of this dialect, if that article doesn't mention them. But you can see "amdjer" in these song lyrics. Haven't found a source for [iʒ'da] yet. – Dan Getz Apr 16 '16 at 16:41
  • I'll continue this tomorrow. – Kenny Lau Apr 16 '16 at 16:52
  • Considering that you have listed a bunch of consonant clusters without prothetic, and only 4 with prothetic, could you please provide more examples of the prothetic vowels? – Kenny Lau Apr 16 '16 at 23:48
  • @KennyLau those are the 4 words that I know of with a vowel added to the beginning, compared to the Portuguese root. – Dan Getz Apr 17 '16 at 03:21
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    @DanGetz I really can't say anything if I only have 4 examples. The most I could say is that [ʒ] and [m] initials undergo prothesis. – Kenny Lau Apr 17 '16 at 03:34

1 Answers1

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Without historical data on the dialect, I'd think that the second hypothesis (Or might this be best explained as dropping the [u] by syncope and adding a [i] by prothesis?) sounds natural and plausible.

But maybe, you can dig up historical records shedding more light on the evolution of the São Vicente dialect of Cape Verdean Creole.

Sir Cornflakes
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  • Just looking at those few examples, how about initial syllable metathesis followed by fronting of the vowel via unstressed /u/ -> [ʉ] -> [i]? In the absence of more data (especially, historical data) it's all just guesswork. – Gaston Ümlaut Mar 07 '16 at 20:56