LL-L: "Historical linguistics" LOWLANDS-L, 10.AUG.2000 (02) [E]

[Lowlands-L]

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 L O W L A N D S - L * 10.AUG.2000 (02) * ISSN 189-5582 * LCSN 96-4226
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From: Stefan Israel [stefansfeder at yahoo.com]
Subject: "Historical linguistics"

Roger Thijs wrote about <dzj>

> dzj:    dzjoe.mp "stomp, duw": d + zj, zoals in Eng.
> Jim.
> Would you consider the J of Jim as two consonants or
> as a single one?
> In my little English dictionary one writes indeed dz
> (the z has a tail) for the phonetics.

In English, the J of Jim etc. is a single phoneme,
likewise the <ch> of church.  In German, on the other
hand, dsch and tsch are clusters of /dZ/ and /tS/.
Linguists have largely settled on writing both parts
of these sounds:  [dZ] and [tS] (that's as close as
email will let me write that, of course), but in
languages where they function as one consonant,
linguists (usually) underline them to indicate that
they are a single phoneme.
Come to think of it, [dZ] will be three phonemes in
some languages: d+z+j.

Stefan Israel
stefansfeder at yahoo.com

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From: john feather [johnfeather at sceptic1.freeserve.co.uk]
Subject: Historical linguistics

Henry wrote:> I have heared otherwise, that "sax" meant "stone
> knife".

Stefan replied: >We're both right, very conveniently:  Latin _saxum_ meant
"stone", and the Grimms realized that _sahs_ must have gone from meaning
stone to stone knife to knife.<

Well, the root may mean "rock, stone" but according to Chambers Etymological
Dictionary - if I understand it correctly - the sense "cutting device" had
developed long before the Romans recorded the Saxones. CED does not make the
connexion with L. "saxum".

John Feather johnfeather at sceptic1.freeserve.co.uk

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