LL-L "Phonology" 2008.05.25 (08) [E]
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L O W L A N D S - L - 25 May 2008 - Volume 08
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From: Sandy Fleming <sandy at scotstext.org>
Subject: LL-L "Phonology" 2008.05.25 (06) [E]
> From: heatherrendall at tiscali.co.uk <heatherrendall at tiscali.co.uk>
> Subject: LL-L "Phonology" 2008.05.25 (03) [E]
>
>
> from Heather Rendall heatherrendall at tiscali.co.uk
>
> Mike Morgan wrote: 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)."
>
> Mike - I was taught (some) Welsh by a dear old vicar who explained
> mutation as having arisen when Welsh contained more pitch than
> nowadays - such as still heard strongly in S. wales and not so
> obviously in North Wales. He said that the pitch of the final sound of
> the previous word affected the following consonant. he likened it to
> Werner's Law which I know depends on emphasis rather than pitch -
> but I could see the connection.
>
> Was this not true? Or is it just another speculation?
Heather,
Mutation goes back such a long way and is also apparent in Irish as
aspiration, so I would hesitate to agree that this has been
demonstrated. Also, these mutations are firmly based on grammatical
features like gender, was there a system of pitch that was indicative of
grammatical features of the language? It's not impossible (or is it?),
but again, hard to see how it could be demonstrated.
Or is the modern pitch of south Wales a really old thing? Can it be
shown to relate to the mutations? All in all, I don't have a good
feeling about it!
Mike,
My feeling about both languages is that the idea that mutations or
aspirations affect only the start of a word is an illusion. I suspect
that at some point in history these phonetic changes started to occur
throughout the consonants of words, both internally and initially, and
also terminally, but they became permanent internally and terminally
because they were influenced by what preceded them, which internally and
terminally would generally be constant.
Seems to me that Welsh mutations are both syntactically and semantically
motivated... "Yn dyn gyda i gi...", "'y nghar...". Not that I really
know or anything!
OK, I tried to think how to get this on-topic, I tried...!
Sandy Fleming
http://scotstext.org/
----------
From: Roger Thijs, Euro-Support, Inc. <roger.thijs at euro-support.be>
Subject: LL-L "Phonology" 2008.05.25 (03) [E]
*> From: Mike Morgan <mwmosaka at gmail.com>
> Subject: *
*LL-L "Resources" 2008.05.24 (05) [E]
> 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.)
*
I was asking myself whether old Celtic presence in Southern Germany could
explain differences in evolution of southern German v/ Low German.
As to Breton, I scanned the initial chapter on mutations:
http://www.euro-support.be/temp/b0809.jpg
http://www.euro-support.be/temp/b1011.jpg
http://www.euro-support.be/temp/b1213.jpg
http://www.euro-support.be/temp/b1415.jpg
http://www.euro-support.be/temp/b1617.jpg
Gender clearly conditions.
I also scanned the introduction to the lingala dictionary:
http://www.euro-support.be/temp/l0001.jpg
http://www.euro-support.be/temp/l0203.jpg
http://www.euro-support.be/temp/l0405.jpg
http://www.euro-support.be/temp/l0607.jpg
http://www.euro-support.be/temp/l0809.jpg
This is not a grammar.
Strange here is that nasalisation of voiceless consonants is optional.
I have been looking to vocabulary of Dutch origin. It is difficult to find,
maybe (random checks + check on milk & book as listed on the wikipedia
page):
crucifix: Kurúze (Dutch: kruis)
lait: miliki, mabéle (Dutch: melk) [mabéle should be written with epsilon
in stead of e, 2 times)
livre: Búku, mo(n)kandá (Dutch: boek)
libraire: Motéki búku (the e in Motéki should be epsilon)
librairie: Magazini ma búku
juif: Moyúda (Dutch: jood)
Regards,
Roger
----------
From: Roger Thijs, Euro-Support, Inc. <roger.thijs at euro-support.be>
Subject: LL-L "Phonology" 2008.05.25 (03) [E]
*> From: Mike Morgan <mwmosaka at gmail.com>
> Subject: *
*LL-L "Resources" 2008.05.24 (05) [E]
> 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.
*
I was asking myself whether old Celtic presence in Southern Germany could
explain differences in evolution of southern German v/ Low German.
As to Breton, I scanned the initial chapter on mutations:
http://www.euro-support.be/temp/b0809.jpg
http://www.euro-support.be/temp/b1011.jpg
http://www.euro-support.be/temp/b1213.jpg
http://www.euro-support.be/temp/b1415.jpg
http://www.euro-support.be/temp/b1617.jpg
Gender clearly conditions.
I also scanned the introduction to the lingala dictionary:
http://www.euro-support.be/temp/l0001.jpg
http://www.euro-support.be/temp/l0203.jpg
http://www.euro-support.be/temp/l0405.jpg
http://www.euro-support.be/temp/l0607.jpg
http://www.euro-support.be/temp/l0809.jpg
This is not a grammar.
Strange here is that nasalisation of voiceless consonants is optional.
I have been looking to vocabulary of Dutch origin. It is difficult to find,
maybe (random checks + check on milk & book as listed on the wikipedia
page):
crucifix: Kurúze (Dutch: kruis)
lait: miliki, mabéle (Dutch: melk) [mabéle should be written with epsilon
in stead of e, 2 times)
livre: Búku, mo(n)kandá (Dutch: boek)
libraire: Motéki búku (the e in Motéki should be epsilon)
librairie: Magazini ma búku
juif: Moyúda (Dutch: jood)
Regards,
Roger
----------
From: Daniel Prohaska <daniel at ryan-prohaska.com>
Subject: LL-L "Phonology"
Heather,
The mutations in the Celtic languages are based in "regular" sound changes
that happened not just within a given wordm but across word boundaries.
After further change, the actually "trigger environment" of these sound
changes was no longer there and the sound changes were grammaticalised, they
acquired grammatical significance rather than just being conditioned by the
sound environment.
Here's an example. Between the 4th and 6th century the British language was
loosing it's grammatical endings, which, as in Latin, showed number gender
and case for nouns.
You may be familiar with the rule in Welsh, Breton and Cornish that feminine
singular nouns undergo soft mutation after the definite article, and
adjectives after feminine singular nouns:
British *merkâ *dagâ "a good daughter"
Sound changes:
- /k/ after /r/ > /x/
- /d/ between vowels > /D/
- /g/ between vowels > /G/
So, the regular sound developments here eventually give something like
*/merxaDaGa/.
The demonstrative adjective *sindos, -â became the definite article, so for
"the good girl", we get British *sindâ merkâ dagâ
Further sound changes for this context:
- /m/ between vowels > /B_~/ (nasal bilabial fricative)
- /s/ > /h/
- /nd/ > /n:/, when unstressed > /n/
- /i/ before /a/ in a following syllable > /e/
This gives */hena'B_~erxa"DaGa/.
Later sound changes:
- loss of endings
- loss of initial /h/ in unstressed pro-clitics
- loss of intervocalic /G/
Eventually the unstressed endings are lost and what remains is:
*/en'B_~erxDa/
This is recognisably Neo-British and the respective developments in Welsh *y
ferch dda*, Cornish *an vergh dha* and Breton *an verc'h *za* (Breton uses *
mat* for "good") are close.
Now let's compare a masculine noun with the article and an adjective:
British *sindos *tatos *dagos "the good father"
Relevant sound changes:
- /t/ between vowels > /d/
Since neither initial /t/ in *tatos nor initial /d/ in *dagos occurs between
vowels, they weren't changed.
*/hin:@h'tad at h"daG at h/
*/in'tad"da/, cf. Welsh *y tad da*, Cornish *an tas da*.
The masculine –o declention, like Latin, again, had a vocative in –e, which
survives in the Neo-British languages in a number of phrases such as Cornish
*tas wyn* "grandfather" (*tas* later replaced with *syra*). Here the word *
gwyn* "white" is mutated to *wyn*, although *tas* is a masculine singular.
So this is from an earlier vocative "Oh, granddad!", British *tate *uinde.
So, in effect the grammatical information was transferred from the ending to
the phonological effect the ending had. When the ending was lost the changed
consonant was the only remaining information and was grammaticalised.
I hope I've made some sense in this techno-babble…
Dan
"From: heatherrendall at tiscali.co.uk <heatherrendall at tiscali.co.uk>
Subject: LL-L "Phonology" 2008.05.25 (03) [E]
from Heather Rendall heatherrendall at tiscali.co.uk
Mike Morgan wrote: 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)."
Mike - I was taught (some) Welsh by a dear old vicar who explained mutation
as having arisen when Welsh contained more pitch than nowadays - such as
still heard strongly in S. wales and not so obviously in North Wales. He
said that the pitch of the final sound of the previous word affected the
following consonant. he likened it to Werner's Law which I know depends on
emphasis rather than pitch - but I could see the connection.
Was this not true? Or is it just another speculation?
Heather"
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