The Neolithic Hypothesis

[Larry Trask]

On Thu, 8 Apr 1999, Miguel Carrasquer Vidal wrote:

[RW]

> >   Most linguists tend to
> >   avoid discussions of reversibility (although there are clear
> >   examples, mostly learned restorations), but I suspect that
> >   this is mostly because if changes are reversed, it plays merry
> >   hell with historical linguistics. :>

[MCV]

> Personally, I found it rather difficult to swallow the reversal
> of Semitic */g/ > Arabic /j/ > Eg. Arabic /g/.  But apparently,
> that's exactly what happened.

I agree that this particular sequence is rather unexpected.  But it's
not hard to find other examples of reversals.

For example, PIE */t/ changed to the dental fricative theta in
Proto-Germanic, and then theta changed back to /t/ again in the
continental Scandinavian languages.

Pre-Basque */n/ generally changed to a palatal nasal in the
configuration */inV/, and then, in most eastern varieties of Basque, the
palatal nasal changed back to /n/ in the same configuration.

While `reversal' is a term of perhaps no great antiquity in English, the
German equivalent `Rueckverwandlung' has been around for quite a while,
I think.  Anybody know when it was first used?

Larry Trask
COGS
University of Sussex
Brighton BN1 9QH
UK

larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk