venetian language 943
weak internal vowels, e.g., Ven. ospeal ~ ital. ospedale vs Romagnol sbdel
< hospitalem “hospital”; Ven. domenega ~ ital. domenica vs Romagnol
dmendg < dominica (dies) “Sunday.” With a few exceptions, all italian
words end in a vowel. apart from those with final /a/, gallo-italian words
tend to end in a consonant. Venetian leans towards italian in this respect.
However, on singular nouns and adjectives it deletes final /e/ and /o/ after
/n/ and /l/ on original paroxytones (words stressed on the penultimate
syllable), but not on derivatives of original geminates, e.g., pan < panem
“bread,” san < sanum “healthy,” man < manus “hand” vs ano < annum
“year”; canal < canalem “canal” vs calle < callem “street”; frutarol <
fructareolum “fruiterer” vs cavalo < caballum “horse.” Final /e/ is also
deleted after /r/, but again not on geminate reflexes, e.g., cuor < corem
“heart” vs tore < turrem “tower.” Final /o/ is, however, retained after /r/
at all times, e.g., duro < durum “hard” and caro < carum “dear.”
italian largely preserves originally unvoiced intervocalic consonants
(those placed between two vowels in Latin). Venetian, like gallo-italian,
voices these or removes them altogether, e.g., Ven. amigo vs ital. amico <
amicum “friend”; Ven. fogo vs ital. fuoco < focum “fire”; Ven. saor vs ital.
sapore < saporem “flavor”; Ven. mario vs ital. marito < maritum “hus-
band.” Similarly, where italian retains Latin double consonants and has
even generated new geminates because of its prosodic accent, Venetian
and gallo-italian have no double consonants at all, e.g., Ven. anelo vs ital.
anello < anellum “ring”; Ven. fiama vs ital. fiamma < flammam “flame”;
Ven. femena vs ital. femmina < feminam “female.”
Patterns of consonantal palatalization in Venetian parallel those of ital-
ian but with predictably different outcomes. among the most common
divergences are the reflexes of Latin C or g (originally pronounced /k/
and /g/ in all contexts) when followed by the front vowels /i/ or /e/. typi-
cal outcomes contrast as follows: Ven. çera vs ital. cera < ceram “wax”;
Ven. çervelo vs ital. cervello < cerebellum “brain”; Ven. zeneral vs ital.
generale < generalem “general.” the Venetian graphemes <ç> and
represented the affricate sounds /ts/ and /dz/ respectively in eV and, in
part, in MidV. towards the end of the latter period and in ModV and CV,
the affricates have been replaced by the sibilants /s/ and /z/ respectively.
Some of the Venetian palatal differences can be seen in the proper names
of famous Venetian artists such as Zuan Bel(l)in (ital. giovanni Bellini),
Vet(t)or Scarpazza (ital. Vittore Carpaccio), and Zorzon da Castelfranco
(ital. giorgione).
among the most characteristic features of Venetian morphosyntax
(grammar) are the identical third persons singular and plural on all verbs