Edwin B. Williams

Radical-Changing Verbs in Portuguese

The development of the conjugation of Spanish verbs of the types vestir, sentir, and dormir has been treated with great skill and resourcefulness by Men6ndez-Pidal1 and more recently by P. Fouch6.2 Neither the theory of Men6ndez-Pidal nor that of Fouch6 for the development, for example, of Lat. v stio into Sp. visto, would account for the development giving the same result in Portuguese, because the type of verb (with j in Lat.) on which Men6ndez-Pidal bases his analogy does not fall into this class in Portuguese (e.g., mitio > m?co) and often does not belong to the third conjugation (e.g., conceber), while the phonological phenomenon on which Fouch6 bases his argument, viz. e > ie, is notably absent from Portuguese. Various attempts have been made to explain the situation in Portuguese. Nunes3 and Almeida Cavacas4 hold that i closes (as well as e) to i in verbs of the third conjugation (vestio > visto), while it closes q but one step to e in verbs of the second conjugation (gemo>*g mio>gqmo). It is difficult to accept a rule of phonology which operates in two ways without provision for a principle of differentiation. Furthermore, the hypothetical intrusion of a / in forms like *gemio5 destroys a dissimilarity