The Portuguese article, now reduced to the vocalic form o, a, os, as, was lo (exceptionally also el, which still survives in the expression El-Rei), la, los, las in the old language. Words ending in 1 in the singular lose the 1 in the plural (because it then becomes median, and so is dropped) : so/ (s o 1 e m), but soes (s o 1 e s) ; those having do in the sing. form the plural either in des or in 6es according to the etymology : thus coo (c a n e m) makes dies, but racdo makes racdes. Portuguese conjugation has more that is interesting. In the personal suffixes the forms of the 2nd pers. pl. in ades, edes, ides lost the d in the i 5th century, and have now become ais, eis, is, through the intermediate forms aes, ees, eis. The form in des has persisted only in those verbs where it was protected by the consonants n or r preceding it : pondes, tendes, vindes, amardes. Portuguese is the only Romance language which possesses a personal or conjugated infinitive: amar, amar-es, amar, amar-mos, amar-des, amar-em; e.g., antes de sair-mos, "be fore we go out." Again, Portuguese alone has preserved the pluperfect in its original meaning, so that, for example, amara (a ma v e r a m) signifies not merely as elsewhere "I would love," but also "I had loved." Among the peculiarities of Portuguese conjugation are—(1) the assimilation of the 3rd pers. sing. to the 1st in strong perfects (houve, pude, quiz, fez), while Castilian has hube and hubo ; (2) the imperfects punka, tinha, vinha (from Or, ter and vir), which are accented on the radical in order to avoid the loss of the n (ponia would have made poia), and which substitute u and i for o and e in order to distinguish from the present subjunctive (ponha, tenha, venha).
Almost all the phonetic features which distinguish Portuguese from Castilian are possessed by Gallego also. Portu
guese and Galician even now are practically one language, and still more was this the case formerly. In conjugation the peculiarities of Gallego are more marked ; some find their explanation within the dialect itself, others seem to be due to Castilian influence. The 2nd persons plural have still their old form ades, edes, ides, so that in this instance it would seem as if Gallego had been arrested in its progress while Portuguese had gone on progressing; but with these full forms the grammarians admit contracted forms as well: as (Port. ais), es (Port. eis), is (Port. is). The 1st pers. sing. of the perfect of conjugations in er and ir. has come to be complicated by a nasal resonance similar to that which we find in the Portuguese mini; we have vendin, partin, instead of vendi, parti, and by analogy this form in in has extended itself also to the perfect of the conjugation in ar, and falin, gardin, for falei, gardei are found. The second persons of the same tense take the ending che, ches in the singular and chedes in the plural: falache or falaches (f a b u 1 a s t i). The 3rd pers. sing. of strong perfect is not in e as in Portuguese (houve, pode), but in o (houbo, puido, soubo, coubo, etc.) ; Castilian influence may be traceable here.
On the general subject the most important works are F. Diez, Grammatik der romanischen Sprachen (5th ed., Bonn, 1882) and Etymologisches W orterbuch der romanischen Sprachen (4th ed., Bonn, 1878) ; W. Meyer-Liibke, Grammatik der romanischen Sprachen (Leipzig, 189o-1894) ; G. Korting, Lateinisch-romanisches W Orterbuch (Paderborn, (189o-1891). See also A. Carnoy, Le Latin d'Espagne d'apres les inscriptions (2nd ed., Brussels, 1906).