l vs. s, sh?

[Wright, Roger]

Many Latin words beginning with [pl-] or [kl-] became Portuguese words beginning with the unvoiced palatal sibilant (a symbol I can't e-mail, but as in the "sh-" of English "shop"); e.g. Latin PLAGAM > Portuguese "chaga" ('wound'), CLAVEM > "chave" ('key'). The Castilian Spanish equivalents used to have the palatal lateral (roughly = the "lli" in English "million"); "llaga", "llave"; though these have since delateralized in many geographical areas.
RW

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From: histling-l-bounces at mailman.rice.edu [histling-l-bounces at mailman.rice.edu] On Behalf Of jess tauber [phonosemantics at earthlink.net]
Sent: 29 March 2011 16:56
To: histling-l at mailman.rice.edu
Subject: [Histling-l] l vs. s, sh?

Hi folks. I've got a question- is historical connection between laterals and sibilants/shibilants common in the languages of the world? I've seen this type of thing as a sound symbolic alternation in a number of different families, but am ignorant about its appearance in comparisons when such alternations are not evident.

In Interior Salish (Kuipers) *t'ak'l(a) refers to packing up provisions for a trip- the Yahgan equivalent is ta:kasa-

Then I.S. (under root *tl'aq to prick, pin, skewer, stick in) there are forms that point to *tl'aq-ana7 for pocket, sack, bag. The Yahgan equivalent here is gvsanux a bag, sack, pocket.

In both examples the Yahgan form has the sibilant where the Interior Salish has instead the lateral (either as phoneme or feature).

Jess Tauber
phonosemantics at earthlink.net
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