Travis Lignell Span 5240 April 27, 2015 Metatasis de consonantes Judeo Spanish is a different form of spoken Spanish that was preserved by the Sephardic Jews who were kick out of Spain in 1492 and have since have begun emigrated throughout Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East. (Bradley, 2007) Previous descriptions of Judeo Spanish have emphasized its conservative nature and show its similarities between itself and Old Spanish. While modern research shows that these are two entirely different languages compared to modern Spanish. The only constant that you can make between them is observing the consonant metathesis (Harris, 2005). This paper will show that metathesis is an ongoing change that has happened in Spanish for centuries and will continue to happen in the future. …show more content…
By regular evolution we should have the word espadla for Lat. Spatula but the sequence /dl/ was avoided by metathesizing the two consonants in ‘espalda’. In Old Spanish that same metathesis of /dl/ to /ld/ can be found regularly with vostros imperatives, followed by their pronouns. Eg comedlos - comeldlos. However this morphophonological rule of metathesis is no longer used. So instead of using the /dl/ sequence we replace these imperatives with the corresponding infinitive forms, eg comdelos - comerlos (Hualde, 2005) Metathesis is usally considered a sporadic sound change because of its supposed irregularity and apparent lack of predictable application. However metatheis usally serves some specific structural purpose, such as the elimination of a universally disfavored sequence, or the establishment of a preferred syllable type. Such examples are found with /dn/ > /nd/, cadnado to candado, or /dl/>/ld/ in cabidlo cabildo. These words are examples of metathesis that were conceived by sporadic sound change and serve a structural purpose. (Holt,