Irregular stresses is normally marked orthographically by acutes (á, é, í, ó, ú) and graves (à, è, ò).
Old Occitan (around the eighth through the fourteenth centuries) had a similar pronunciation to present-day Occitan; the major differences were: The confusion of spellings, such as se for ce, voluntat for volontat, indicate the accomplishment of a phonetic evolution (here [t͡s] > [s] and atonic [o] > [u]).Although z originally denoted the voiced affricate [dz], it simplified to [z], as [t͡s] simplified to [s], but at an earlier date.
When we note that tonic -a followed by unstable n does not rhyme with regular tonic -a, we have confirmation of two a-phonemes, the normal [a] (anterior a) and the posterior [ɑ], as well as confirmation that Old Occitan does not nasalize vowels followed by nasal consonants, as Old French does.Les manuscrits ne distinguaient pas i intervocalique de j: on hésite donc sur la prononciation des mots suivants: veraia, aia, raia, saia, etc.
Sur sh, voyez un passage des Leys d'amors, I, 62, qui prouve clairement que cette combinaison n'avait pas la valeur d'une s simple.
Ainsi les Coutumes de Limoges ont ayschí, punischen, mais plus souvent, par ch, laychen, poicha, etc.The Italian notation gl and the Catalanized ll, both indicating [ʎ], give evidence of the palatalized pronunciation of Occitan lh.