13
votes
¿Por qué en español hay tan pocas palabras acabadas en "u"?
Históricamente, la -u final de los étimos latinos tras la pérdida de -m (acusativo) se abría en -o, con lo que, teniendo en cuenta que la inmensa mayoría del vocabulario español procede del latín, es ...
- 2,347
8
votes
Rule for pronouncing 'ay' in a word
Y works like a consonant wherever it is immediately followed by a vowel that is part of the same word. Otherwise, it is a vowel, equivalent to I for all purposes.
A + unstressed I is always a ...
7
votes
Accepted
¿Es posible una oración que solo tenga palabras con úes?
No existen formas verbales que no tengan en su terminación alguna de las otras cuatro vocales, de modo que sólo se podría construir oraciones incompletas, o en el estrecho campo de las oraciones de ...
- 2,380
6
votes
Accepted
cAusa but veAmos (strong, weak vowels)
The webpage you consulted makes a dreadful mix of phonetics (how things are pronounced) and orthography (how things are written) and is also not really using proper terms. So let's begin by that.
The ...
- 39.5k
5
votes
Accepted
¿Son éstas las vocales IPA que se usan en español?
Sí, es correcto. Las vocales en español son cinco, tanto en la escritura [*] como en la pronunciación: dos cerradas (i,u) dos semiabiertas (e,o) y una abierta (a).
Y la ubicación en el mapa vocálico ...
- 7,721
4
votes
cAusa but veAmos (strong, weak vowels)
There is no rule on how to place stress in combinations of vowels. It is the other way around. Any two vowels can be stressed in any way and, depending on whether they are both in the same syllable, ...
- 10.7k
4
votes
When did the Spanish language lose the long vowel sounds that Latin had?
There are indeed short and long vowel sounds in Spanish, but they are not phonemic, i. e. they are not contrastive. Vowels tend to become longer when stressed; this is very common across languages. ...
- 39.5k
4
votes
How are vowels pronounced differently (regarding lip and/or tongue placement) in Spanish than in English?
English has many vowels (13-16, depending on the dialect) and Spanish has relatively few (just 5). What we consider English vowels are very often diphthongs (i.e. a gliding vowel in the articulation ...
- 940
4
votes
Accepted
How is the letter "o" pronounced?
What you are hearing are two different allophones of the same phoneme /o/.
In English /o/ and /ɒ/ are contrastive (e.g. rote vs rot), but Spanish only has one back-mid vowel /o/, and hence while open ...
- 19.4k
3
votes
Accepted
Why tribu, espíritu, ímpetu, not *tribo, *espírito, *ímpeto?
The short answer is because these words are cultismos or learned words.
According to Corominas, espíritu was taken directly from Latin in the 13th century:
DERIV. Espíritu, 1220-50, tom. del lat. ...
- 578
3
votes
Why tribu, espíritu, ímpetu, not *tribo, *espírito, *ímpeto?
As you said, the regular development seems like it would have been -o, as in mano.
I just wanted to mention that in other respects as well, none of these words looks like a completely natural ...
- 524
3
votes
Accepted
Del origen y usos de los verbos podrir/pudrir en España
Podrir es la forma más antigua. Pudrir aparece circa 1500 según el CORDE, mientras que podrir se usa desde los documentos registrados más tempranos de los fines del siglo XIII.
Mi suposición es que, ...
- 19.4k
3
votes
¿Es posible una oración que solo tenga palabras con úes?
Mi granito de arena: una oración copulativa con verbo elidido (una estructura gramatical bastante frecuente), en este caso comprensible por su sentido religioso:
Su cruz: tu luz.
- 16.6k
3
votes
Rule for pronouncing 'ay' in a word
Just to complete OnlyThenDidIReckonMyCurse's answer ...
According to the Wikipedia:
Salma Hayek Jiménez was born in Coatzacoalcos, Veracruz, Mexico. Her
father, Sami Hayek Domínguez, is Lebanese ...
- 8,814
3
votes
Accepted
¿Por qué en español se debe cambiar la -i final por -y?
rey, ley, grey, buey
I believe this is due to the plural forms of buey(es), grey(es), ley(es), rey(es).
These are the only Latin-descended words in Spanish which end -y. With the exception of buey (...
- 19.4k
2
votes
¿Por qué en español hay tan pocas palabras acabadas en "u"?
As Paco and Pablodf say, Latin or Late/Vulgar Latin words ending -u generally evolved into -o in Spanish. Whence disappeared most possibility of naturally inherited -u words in Spanish since no other ...
- 19.4k
1
vote
Spanish pronunciation of the word no
No existen diferencias entre "No" y "Noh", ya que en español la "h" no se pronuncia, salvo en raros localismos, que normalmente se encuentran en lugares rurales con la ...
- 6,225
1
vote
¿Por qué tan poco estudio sobre las vocales del español puertorriqueño?
I think it's because Spanish vowels don't really change all that much. There are five standard vowels used throughout the Spanish-speaking world, less than in all other major Romance languages. Thus, ...
- 139
1
vote
¿Debe sustituirse "y" por "e" si la palabra empezada por "i" viene tras una coma y dentro de una frase secundaria?
No me suena bien con y, mejor con e, otra cosa es que creo que la coma está mal puesta. De hecho y, apenas lo he visto por no decir nunca, , y lo he visto poco pero al menos soy consciente de haberlo ...
- 1,215
1
vote
How to explain to English speakers how to pronounce a pure Spanish E as in *meta*
There are several words in the English language that sound "LIKE" the E in the Spanish language:
ephemeral, endeavor, energy, Everest.
That's generally the sound of the vowel.
Another way to ...
- 3,294
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