r and s yet again

[manaster at umich.edu]

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
If I may, I'd like to say hi to Kevin, and say that as always
great minds do think alike.  I cite this very French sound
change (I dont mean it is very French; I mean this very one)
in a recent paper in JIES (along with an exmaple from
Polish) to show that such a direction of change is indeed
possible.  The context may be of more general interest.
A leading Russian linguist, Serebrennikov or Shcherbak
I forget which, had attacked Nostratic among other things
on the grounds that some of the sound changes from Nostratic
to daughter languages posited by Illich-Svitych were
impossible.  This was one of them.
 
Alexis MR
 
On Mon, 26 Oct 1998, Kevin Tuite wrote:
 
> ----------------------------Original message----------------------------
>
>
> In a recent posting, Ralf-Stefan Georg asked "what is the evidence for r >
> z being more wide-spread" or, well, "natural" ? What parallels can be found
> ?"  Phonetic changes similar in some respects to the shift r > z postulated
> by some Turkologists have been attested. One of them is an interesting
> chapter in the sociolinguistic history 13th-16th century French, of a sound
> change that subsequently was beaten back.
[snip]