*gwh in Gmc.

Miguel Carrasquer Vidal mcv at wxs.nl
Fri Feb 2 01:30:07 UTC 2001


On Tue, 30 Jan 2001 13:03:16 +0100, "Hans-Werner Hatting"
<hwhatting at hotmail.com> wrote:

>Anyway, the proposed sound change **/pw/ > */kw/ looks unusual to me. We
>have a lot of /kw/ > /p/ in IE languages, but does anybody know of instances
>(except assimilation) for the change proposed by Douglas Kilday?
>A further argument for an old /kw/ is the nasal. By PIE phonological rules,
>we would expect /m/ before /p/. But the Gmc. languages have mostly the
>reflexes of /n/,

I don't think so: Goth. fimf, ON fimm, fimt, OHG fimf, finf, OS/OE
fi:f.

>which is possible before labiovelars like /kw/ (probably
>being realised as (ng)), but not before true labials. Later occurences of
>/m/ in Gmc. languages can be easily explained as assimilations.

Or vice versa.

>For my part, I think it4s simpler to assume that the reflexes of PIE /kw/
>occasionally merged with those of /p/ in some stage of Proto-Gmc.
>under the influence of labial consonants in the same word.

My original examples were: "liver", "four", "-leven, -lve", "oven",
"wolf", "leave"(?), "sieve"(?).  There's a labial in "wolf".

=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
mcv at wxs.nl



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