l vs. s, sh?

[Marie-Lucie Tarpent]

I find these "changes" from /l/ to a variety of sibilants (without a suggestion of intermediate steps) hard to believe.  I don't know the language families in question, let alone the reasons for the reconstruction of */l/ in the specific proto-languages, but could the */l/ be from yet another proto-phoneme, such as a **dental, so that the lateral and the sibilant might have a common ancestor, with the */l/ reconstructed because of its preponderance within the family rather than the phonetic plausibility of *lateral > sibilant?  Even assuming that */l/ is the correct reconstruction, it is one thing to say that /s/ is the reflex of */l/ in language  X, another to say (or imply) that the change has been (directly) */l/ > /s/.  

(The Quechua example seems to be of a different type than the other ones, since it involves a palatalized consonant, not the plain /l/). 

 marie-lucie tarpent     

Date: Wed, 30 Mar 2011 13:42:02 +0200
From: parkvall at ling.su.se
To: histling-l at mailman.rice.edu
Subject: Re: [Histling-l] l vs. s, sh?



  


    
    Message body
  
  
    
    I haven’t
        systematicaly searched for sound changes, but whenever I come
        across a table or
        the like citing many of them at once, I usually save them in a
        file. Who knows what may
        come in handy some sunny day? For whatever it’s worth, here are
        the cases I
        have in that note file which might fit the bill:
     
    * Proto-Algonquian
        → Arapaho: /ɬ/ → /θ/
(Picard
      1994:4)
    * Proto-Algonquian
      → Blackfoot: /l/ → /ʃ/
      (Berman
      2006:365)
    * Proto-Algonquian
        → Woods Cree: /l/ → /ð/
      (Bakker 1996b:5)
    * proto-Austronesian
      →→ Basay: /l/ → /c/ (Li
      2004:367)
    * Proto-Min → some Min dialects: /toneless l/ → /ʃ/ (Norman 1988:233)
    * Proto-Min → some Western Min dialects:
      /toneless l/ → /s/ (Norman
      1988:233)
    * Proto-Ongamo-Maa → Ngasa: /ɬ/ → /h/ (Vossen & Heine
      1989:191-3)
    * proto-Quechua → Argentinian Quechua of
      Santiago del Estero:
      /lʲ/ → /ʒ/ (Adelaar
      2004:204) [Citing from memory, doesn't this characterise
      Argentinian Spanish as well?]

    
    * proto-Quechua → some Quechua varieties of
      Argentina and Ecuador:
      /lʲ/ → /ʧ/ (Adelaar
      2004:204)
     
    The IPA is in Unicode. I can provide the refs
      if anyone needs
      them.
    

    

    /mp

  


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