s > r (Iberian) correction

[Robert R. Ratcliffe]

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
bwald wrote:
 
> In a separate message, Robert Ratcliffe wrote:
>
> >But in general I do not see any reason to assume
> >that no sound change is reversible given enough time.
>
 
This wasn't me. But Mark Hubey responding to something I wrote.  Have to
be careful with these interlinear discussions.
 
My point was that some directions of change are more or less probable
not that any are necessarily impossible.  But some changes ARE
irreversible, as Larry Trask pointed out earlier in this thread-- namely
phoneme loss, mergers, and I would add assimilation in clusters (okto >>
otto type changes).
 
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Robert R. Ratcliffe
Senior Lecturer, Arabic and Linguistics,
Dept. of Linguistics and Information Science
Tokyo University of Foreign Studies
Nishigahara 4-51-21, Kita-ku
Tokyo 114 Japan