Monday, December 16, 2019

Comparison of Bilabial Plosives of Spanish and Italian

Many Spanish words with the voiced bilablial plosive have the voiceless one in Italian. The voiceless plosive became voiced in Spanish. However, Italian preserved the voiceless bilablial plosive. Here are examples:

abierto aperto (open)
cabo capo (cape)
cabra capra (goat)
escoba scopa (broom)
jabón sapone (soap)
liebre lepre (hare)
lobo lupo (wolf)
obra opera (work)
pueblo popolo (people)
sobre sopra (over)

French also preserved the voiceless bilabial plosive of Latin in the words cap (cape), loup (wolf) and peuple (people). The voiced bilabial plosive of Spanish occurs between two sonorants. This is thus an example of voicing assimilation.

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