History of Spanish Nouns

History of the Spanish Noun

1. The erosion of the case system
One of the major differences between Spanish and its ancestor, Latin, is the fact that Spanish completely lacks overt nominal case, whereas Latin had a very rich case system. Case is a morphological category of the noun which serves to mark the noun’s grammatical function in a sentence, e.g. whether it is the subject or the object. Excluding the vocative (used for direct address), which was marked only in a some nouns (and then only in the singular), Classical Latin had five cases:

Nominative (prototypically used for a verb’s subject):
Lupus cervum videt. (‘The wolf sees the deer.’)
Accusative (prototypically used for a verb’s direct object, but could also be governed by a preposition):
Lupum video. (‘I see the wolf.’)
Genitive (prototypically ownership or association):
cervi cornua (‘the stag’s horns’)
Dative (prototypically used for a verb’s indirect object):
Librum mulieri do. (‘I give the book to the woman.’)
Ablative (indicating agency, instrumentality, manner or location, often in conjunction with a preposition):
Cum amicis deliberavi. (‘I consulted with friends.’)

In Classical Latin, nouns were grouped into five classes or declensions, according to the pattern of their case endings. In Vulgar Latin, however, there were (or there came to be) just three declensions, as the relatively small 4th and 5th declensions merged with the other three. These three main declensions are shown in Table 1 below, using the examples of tĕrra ‘land’ and lŭpus ‘wolf’ in the 1st and 2nd declensions and of pater ‘father’ and pānis ‘bread’ in the 3rd. The latter was in fact characterized by having rather unpredictable nominative singular forms, a point we come back to below.

Table 1 Declensions 1 to 3 in Classical Latin
		1st decl.	2nd decl.	3rd decl.
Sing.	Nominative	tĕrra ‘land’	lŭpus ‘wolf’	pānis ‘bread’	pater ‘father’
	Accusative	tĕrram	lŭpum	pānem	patrem
	Genitive	tĕrrae	lŭpī	pānis	patris
	Dative	tĕrrae	lŭpō	pānī	patrī
	Ablative	tĕrrā	lŭpō	pāne	patre
Plu.	Nominative	tĕrrae	lŭpī	pānēs	patrēs
	Accusative	tĕrrās	lŭpōs	pānēs	patrēs
	Genitive	tĕrrārum	lŭpōrum	pānum	patrum
	Dative	tĕrrīs	lŭpīs	pānibus	patribus
	Ablative	tĕrrīs	lŭpīs	pānibus	patribus

Given the general loss of length distinctions in spoken Latin, as well as vowel mergers in final syllables and the early loss of final /m/, the case system illustrated above became highly syncretic, in the sense that in each of the declensions multiple cases had the same morphological form. For example, in the 1st declension (the /-a/ class), the nominative, accusative and ablative singular forms came to be identical in terms of the way they were ponounced, e.g. [ˈtɛɾɾa] for tĕrră, tĕrrăm and tĕrrā (nom., acc. and abl. sing. respectively). Phonetic identity between the ablative and accusative singular forms arose in fact in all three declensions, given that the -ō and -ŭm endings in the 2nd declension merged into /-o/ while -ĕ and -ĕm in the 3rd declension merged into /-e/.

Perhaps as a consequence of the increasing syncretism of the case system, spoken Latin gradually came to rely on prepositions to express grammatical functions (other than subject and direct object). A template for this structure in fact already existed, in the ‘preposition + ablative’ and ‘preposition + accusative’ constructions mentioned above, but this syntactic pattern must have been extended well beyond its original domain of use, eventually replacing the genitive and dative cases entirely. For example, to express the meaning ‘of this woman’ it can be surmised that the replacement shown below must have occurred in speech:

Classical form:
ĭstīus mŭliĕris (gen. sing. of ĭstă mŭliĕr)

Replaced in speech by:
de ĭstam mŭliĕrem (acc.) or de ĭstā mŭliĕre (abl.), both pronounced [de ˈesta moˈljɛɾe]

Examples from early Romance suggest that the merged ablative/accusative could occasionally be used (see Salvi 2011:320) without a preposition to express the genitive and dative functions, but the overwhelming trend was towards the use of prepositions for all case functions other than subject and direct object.

The logical outcome of this process would be the replacement – in the singular – of the five-case Classical system by a binary system. Such a system would comprise (i) a continuation of the nominative which, as was just noted, was unaffected by the drift towards the prepositional expression of erstwhile case relations, and (ii) a continuation of the now merged ablative and accusative, with (singular) endings in /-a/ in the first declension, /-o/ in the second and /-e/ in the third. This latter case is conventionally designated using the label oblique, a practice that we adopt here.

Turning now to the plural category, it seems clear that a merger here between the accusative and the ablative was not possible, given the phonetic disparity between the relevant endings: ās, ōs, ēs (acc.) versus -īs, -īs, -ibus (abl.). On the other hand, of these two sets of endings only the accusative ones survive into Spanish. It thus seems likely that the binary system that we assume to have emerged in the singular was extended analogically into the plural, with speakers identifying the accusative (rather than the ablative) as the equivalent case in the plural to the merged accusative/ablative of the singular. According to this line of reasoning, spoken Latin would have replaced phrases such as ĭstīus mŭliĕrum (gen. plu. of ĭsta mŭliĕr) with de ĭstās mŭliĕres (de + acc. plu.), by analogy with the corresponding construction in the singular.

An additional point to note in respect of the plural is that, according to Aebischer 1971, the nominative ending in the first declension, viz. -ae (= /-e/), was replaced by /-as/ at an early date in certain varieties of Latin, including that from which Spanish is descended. This will be significant for understanding how the binary system developed into the modern nominal system which lacks overt case entirely (a residue of case remains of course in the pronominal system).

Taken together, the foregoing developments result in a late spoken Latin nominal system that can be idealized as in the table below (following convention I use ‘oblique’ to refer to the non-nominative case both in the singular and the plural):

Table 2 Vulgar Latin nominal system
		1st decl.	2nd decl.	3rd decl.
Sing.	Nominative	[ˈtɛɾɾa]	[ˈlopos]	[ˈpanes]	[ˈpateɾ]
Sing.	Oblique	[ˈtɛɾɾa]	[ˈlopo]	[ˈpane]	[ˈpatɾe]
Plu.	Nominative	[ˈtɛɾɾas]	[ˈlopi]	[ˈpanes]	[ˈpatɾes]
Plu.	Oblique	[ˈtɛɾɾas]	[ˈlopos]	[ˈpanes]	[ˈpatɾes]

Note that, in relation to Spanish, the system shown in the above table has to remain within the realm of plausible hypothesis, because even the earliest attestations of Old Spanish show no residue at all of the Latin nominal case distinctions. The hypothesis that such a system existed within the history of Spanish is however supported by Old French, which did retain a constrast between nominative and oblique cases, among nouns from both the 2nd and the 3rd Latin declensions:

2nd declension
veisins ‘neighbour’ < vicīnus (nom. sing.)
veisin ‘neighbour’ < vicīnum/ō (acc./abl. sing.)
veisin ‘neighbours’ < vicīnī (nom. plu.)
veisins ‘neighbours’ < vicīnōs (acc. plu.)

3rd declension
chiens ‘dog’ < canis (nom. sing.)
chien ‘dog’ < canem/e (acc./abl. sing.)
chiens ‘dogs’ < canēs (nom./acc. plu.)

Assuming that a system such as the one shown in Table 2 did indeed emerge in the history of Spanish, a clue as to how the modern system developed from it is provided by the prevalence of the suffix /-s/ in the plural category, which appeared in five of the six possible forms. A plausible hypothesis is that this suffix, which in Classical Latin had not been an exponent of number, was reanalyzed as a plural marker, replacing the anomalous 2nd declension nominative plural ending /-i/ and being eliminated from the nominative singular in both the 2nd and 3rd declensions. These twin processes of analogical extension and levelling imply complete merger of the nominative with the oblique case in the 1st and 2nd declensions, as well as near merger in the 3rd declension. In the latter, only those nouns that had “irregular” endings in the nom. sing. – i.e. endings not in /-es/ – could have retained a case distinction between nominative and oblique once /-s/ had been reanalysed as a plural marker (and then only in the singular). Any such distinction did not survive into Old Spanish, however, implying that even these irregular nom. sing. forms were eventually lost or merged with their oblique counterparts.

We can perhaps posit merger for the specific form [ˈpateɾ] shown in the table above, as this would become identical with its oblique counterpart if we assume that metathesis (i.e. transposition) of [e] and [ɾ] occurred in speech. However, a simple account like that is not available for most of the irregular 3rd declension nom. sing. forms. In the case of hŏmō ‘man’, for example, there is no obvious route to merger with the corresponding oblique form [om(e)ne] (< hŏmine(m) acc./abl. sing.), which is the source of Old Spanish omne/omre (> hombre). In this and other cases, simple loss of the nom. sing. form in late spoken Latin or early Ibero-Romance seems as good an explanation as any.

On the other hand, common errors highlighted by the Appendix Probi, such as gliris instead of nom. sing. glis ‘doormouse’ imply that at least some short nom. sing. forms in the 3rd declension were remodelled by analogy with other, longer members of the paradigm – the putative nom. sing. gliris, for example, is identical with the genitive singular form. Conceivably, then, the loss of forms like hŏmō might have occurred because alternative (analogical) nom. sing. forms were created (e.g. [om(e)nes], modelled on gen. sing. hŏminis), which subsequently merged with the corresponding oblique form when /-s/ was reanalysed as a plural marker. However in the majority of instances, including that of hŏmō, the putative analogical nom. sing. form is unattested in the written record, meaning that any account along these lines can only be speculative

Leaving this uncertainty aside, however, the basic narrative outlined above probably represents a good approximation as to how a nominal system was formed in which there were no case distinctions at all. In terms of what actually persists from the Classical Latin era, we can identify (i) the three declension-marking vowels /a, o, e/ and (ii) the suffix /-s/, now reanalysed as a plural marker. The remainder of system has fallen victim to a combination of sound change, analogical readjustment and a general typological shift from a ‘synthetic’ case-based language to an ‘analytic’ one based on the use of prepositions to express grammatical functions.

2. Consolidation of gender marking
Most nouns in the Vulgar Latin 2nd declension, the /-o/ class, were masculine, and most in the first declension or /-a/ class were feminine. This correlation between grammatical gender and phonology was progressively extended and by the Old Spanish period virtually no nouns in -o or -a deviated from it. Accordingly, words like sucrum and ulmum, which ended in /-o/ but were in fact feminine, either underwent a change in their final vowel (e.g. sŏcrum > swegra ‘mother-in-law’) or switched genders (e.g. ŭlmum fem. > olmo ‘elm’ masc.). The swegra example is actually alluded to in the Appendix Probi, which commands socrus non socra.

Other nouns joined the /-o/ and /-a/ classes owing to the fact that, from the Latin period onwards, there was a tendency towards gender hypercharacterization, with either /o/ or /a/ replacing the gender non-specific ending /-e/ or being added to nouns that ended in a consonant:

pŭppem [ˈpoppe] > [ˈpopa] popa ‘stern (of ship)’
cŭchleāre [kokˈljaɾe] > [kuˈtʃaɾ] > [kuˈtʃaɾa] cuchara ‘spoon’

The main popularly derived exceptions to the principle whereby nouns in /-o/ are masculine and nouns in /-a/ feminine are día ‘day’ (masc.) and mano ‘hand’ (fem.). Most of the Greek-derived masculine nouns in /-a/ such as poeta ‘poet’, síntoma ‘symptom’, problema ‘problem’ etc. are later cultismos (learned borrowings from Latin/Greek); words like moto ‘motorbike’ and foto ‘photo’ (both feminine) are modern abbreviations of words that do fit the normal pattern; and words like cura ‘cure’ and guardia ‘guard’ are feminine in their original, abstract sense, only becoming masculine through metonymic extension of their meaning (el cura ‘the priest’, el guardia ‘the guardsman’).

3. Demise of the Latin neuter
Unlike their modern Spanish counterparts, some nouns in Classical Latin were of the neuter gender, which was characterized by an identity of form between the nominative and the accusative and by the fact that the nominative/accusative plural always ended in -a.

Neuters in the 2nd declension had nom./acc. singular forms in -um and were thus naturally reanalyzed as masculine nouns, acquiring analogical plurals in /-os/. For example, modern castillo ‘castle’ (masc.) descends from neuter castĕllum, which originally had castĕlla as its (nom./acc.) plural. Erstwhile 4th declension neuters like cŏrnū ‘horn’ (> cuerno) developed in an identical way, given that the 4th declension came to merge with the 2nd (in the specific instance of cŏrnū this merger was foreshadowed in Classical Latin, which already included alternative 2nd declension-style forms of this noun such as cornum in the nom./acc. singular and cŏrnī in the genitive singular). The 2nd declension also provided a home for 3rd declension neuters in -us, which generally lost their final /-s/ in the singular (in addition to acquiring an analogical plural in /-os/). For example, pecho ‘chest, breast’ (masc.) descends from neuter pĕctus (plural: pĕctora).

On the other hand, some neuters that could have become 2nd declension masculine nouns in fact evolved through their plural in -a, and hence were reanalysed as feminine nouns of the 1st declension. The following are some common examples:

fŏlia (pl. of fŏlium) > hoja ‘leaf’
lĭgna (pl. of lĭgnum) > leña ‘firewood’
pĭgn(o)ra (pl. of pĭgnus) > Old Sp. peyndra/pendra > prenda ‘pledge/garment’
vōta (pl. of vōtum) > boda ‘wedding’

3rd declension neuters with nom./acc. sing in /-e/, such as rete ‘net’ and mare ‘sea’, looked like any other 3rd declension noun once they had acquired analogical plurals in /-es/. However, they lacked any overt phonological cue as regards gender and hence were reanalysed somewhat arbitrarily in this regard, a fact reflected in the cross-linguistic variation in terms of the gender of such nouns in modern Romance (compare e.g. Spanish el mar with French la mer).

A significant subset of the 3rd declension neuters originally had short nom./acc. singular forms, which were expanded analogically in spoken Latin. In most cases this process involved the acquisition of a regular 3rd declension ending in /-e/, although any resultant forms that were greater than two syllables in length subsequently underwent intertonic vowel loss and consequent phonetic adjustment:

lacte (attested for lac) > leche ‘milk’
[ˈnomene] (for nōmen) > [ˈnomne] > [ˈnombɾe] nombre‘name’
[ˈiŋgwene] (for inguen) > [ˈiŋgne] > [ˈiŋgle] ingle ‘groin’
[ˈrobuɾe] (for rōbur) > [ˈroβɾe] > [ˈroβle] roble ‘oak tree’

In a handful of cases, however, neuters in this category were remodelled as 2nd declension masculine nouns in /-o/:

caput > cabo ‘end’
vas > vaso ‘glass’
ŏs > hueso ‘bone’

References
Aebischer, Paul. 1971. ‘Le pl. -ās de la I^ère decl. latine et ses résultats dans les langues romanes.’ Zeitschrift für romanische Philologie 87:74-98.

Salvi, Giampalo. 2011. ‘Morphosyntactic persistence.’ In The Cambridge history of the Romance Languages Vol. 1, eds Martin Maiden, John Charles Smith and Adam Ledgeway (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), pp. 318–81.