More on dental fricatives

Rick Mc Callister rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu
Thu Nov 16 14:31:18 UTC 2000


>[Ed]

	more like a thibilant :>

>I would guess that this is because in Castilian theta (written as c or z) is
>considered a sibilant of sorts. In the Americas it is pronounced /s/ anyway.

[snip]

	Spanish <c, z> are from Old Spanish /c, DZ/. Some try to assign a
clean dichotomy of <c> < /c/ & <z> < /DZ/ but a check of the various
spellings doesn't seem to allow that
	Someone more knowledgeable than I am can elaborate on voiced vs.
unvoiced affricates in Old Spanish or whether dialect had anything to do
with it

>[Ed]

>This brings us back to the old discussion about the origins of the two
>sibilants s/theta in Castilian (the often heard idea is that it comes from an
>affricated s) and its possible relationship to the two (apical/laminal)
>sibilants written as s/z in Basque. After all, Castilian originated in the
>fringe of the Basque speaking area. Remember also my remark about the
>Castilian adjective Madrileño, with an l like in Basque 'Madril'.

Rick Mc Callister
W-1634
Mississippi University for Women
Columbus MS 39701



More information about the Indo-european mailing list