LL-L "Phonology" 2008.05.25 (03) [E]

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L O W L A N D S - L  - 24 May 2008 - Volume 03
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From: Mike Morgan <mwmosaka at gmail.com>
Subject: LL-L "Resources" 2008.05.24 (05) [E]

Roger Thijs, Euro-Support, Inc. <roger.thijs at euro-support.be> asks


> A question: can these rules of mutation have had some influence on the
> early evolution of West Germanic languages?


Roger,
Demad deoc'h!

Unlikely. First the sorts of mutations that occur historically are
phonetically and phonologically quite normal (e.g. voicing of stops between
vowels, fricativization after /s/, etc), and occur or have occurred in
languages all over the world, and so there would be no need to posit West
Germanic (or any outside) influence.

Second, the sorts of mutations you are seeing synchoronically in that
grammar (or in ANY grammar of ANY modern Celtic language) are
1) limited to the initial consonants, and
2) conditioned synactically (the common explanation) or semantically (the
less common explanation, but the one I prefer ... having presented a paper
on the semantic motivations of initial consonants in welsh as my very FIRST
conference paper way back in 1982).
NEITHER sounds very Germanic to me. (THOUGH they are NOT unique in the
world; the languages that have them are far from both the Celtic and
Germanic language s... geographically AND genetically. Which is to say:
coincidentally.)

yn iach i chdi!

MWM || マイク || Мика || माईक || માઈક || ਮਾਈਕ
================
Dr Michael W Morgan
Managing Director
Ishara Foundation
Mumbai (Bombay), India
++++++++++++++++
माईकल मोर्गन (पी.एच.डी.)
मेनेजिंग डॉयरेक्टर
ईशारा फॉउंडेशन (मुंबई )
++++++++++++++++
茂流岸マイク(言語学博士)
イシャラ基金の専務理事・事務局長
ムンバイ(ボンベイ)、インド
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