reversal of merger (Yiddish final consonants)

[Jim Rader]

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
At least in Standard Lithuanian, voiced stops and fricatives are
devoiced in Auslaut, so that <daug> has a final [k] and <uz^> a final
[s^].

Jim Rader

> "Alan R. King" <mccay at redestb.es> wrote:
>
> >In "Polish" Yiddish
> >there is general devoicing of word-final stops and fricatives, but not in
> >the other varieties ["Ukrainian", "Lithuanian"], in which final voiced and
> >voiceless consonants contrast.
>
> It is interesting to note that standard Ukrainian (as opposed to
> Polish, Russian and Bielorussian) also maintains the voiced-voiceless
> ditinction word-finally.  Whether in Ukrainian this is an archaism or
> an innovation is hard to say (the spelling is obviously influenced by
> Russian, and there aren't that many undeclinable words in Slavic to
> begin with), but my guess would be that's it's a retention.  I don't
> know about Lithuanian, but Latvian also does not devoice final voiced
> consonants.
>
>
> =======================
> Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
> mcv at wxs.nl
> Amsterdam
>