On the Origin of the <i>Genuinely Galician</i> Present Indicative Forms <i>dis</i> , <i>di</i> , <i>din</i> of <i>dicir</i>

Abstract Galician dis , di , din of dicir are synchronically irregular because they lack a root-final consonant, i. e., di- vs. dig- , dic- . They are also diachronically irregular: Old Galician exhibited diz es , diz e , diz en , but unlike Portuguese, Mirandese, Asturian, Castilian, and Aragonese, did not retain a root-final consonant. Considering the general retention of Ibero-Romance root-final consonants descendent from Lat. dῑc -, an explanation for the change of Old Gal. diz es , diz e ~ diz , diz en to Modern Gal. di s , di , di n is in order. Only two previous proposals have been put forth to date: 1) analogy with dá of dar ; and 2) a so-called 3 rd sg. -s “insólita” resulting from Old Gal. diz &gt; dis . The former is deemed here untenable on theoretical grounds; the latter, though more plausible, is not unassailable given the maintenance of a 3 rd singular final consonant normally associated with the 2 nd person in closely related Portuguese and Mirandese. The present study therefore does not take as its point of departure 3 rd sg. dis , but instead, a well-established process of historical morphology of the Ibero-Romance verbal system and two other irregular 3 rd sg. forms, fai and vai of facer and ir , which point to a more likely explanation, namely syncretism.