LL-L 'Phonology' 2006.09.18 (01) [E]

Tue Sep 19 15:23:03 UTC 2006

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L O W L A N D S - L * 19 September 2006 * Volume 01
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From: clarkedavid8 at aol.com
Subject: LL-L 'Phonology' 2006.09.18 (03) [E]

"From: R. F. Hahn [sassisch at yahoo.com]
Subject: Phonology

"I am wondering about the possible reasons for the Continental Germanic language
varieties -- the Lowlandic ones included -- have lost their old interdental
fricatives: /ÃƒÂ¾/ (as in "THird") and /ÃƒÂ°/ (as in "THere")."

English-speaking children seem to have difficulty in picking up the "th" sound
and often pronounce it as "f" (though not "s" or "t") for quite a long time,
requiring quite emphatic repeated correction from their parents before they get
it right. Perhaps, therefore, it is a sound that will normally disappear in
languages fairly quickly if it arises, unless the speakers of the language attach
particular importance to it, as a sign of maturity or nationality. Why is it also
present in Spanish? Is this due to an Iberian substrate, Visigothic influence or
an organic development from Vulgar Latin?

David Clarke

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From: 'Isaac M. Davis' [isaacmacdonalddavis at gmail.com]
Subject: LL-L 'Phonology' 2006.09.18 (02) [E]

Ron Hahn wrote:

    Note also the substitution of interdental fricatives by means of dental stops
    (dental /t/ and /d/) in Irish English (including that of native English
    speakers), considering that Irish Gaelic and other Insular Celtic languages have
    no interdentals but (like Romance languages) have dental /t/, /d/, /n/ and /l/. 

Which insular Celtic languages are we talking about? Welsh has them, Cornish has
them. Old Irish had them, as lenited forms of T and D, though lenited T later
fell in with lenited S, and lenited D with lenited G. Manx has the voiced one, I
believe, as an allophone of some sort of T, spelt _th_. I think it only shows up
as an interdental fricative intervocalically.

Breton, which is actually an Insular Celtic language in spite of being spoken on
the Continent, does not have them. It seems to have lost them under French
influence, and I think in most dialects, the sound that corresponds to the Welsh
_dd_, the voiced dental fricative, is /z/. In one dialect that I know of, it's
pronounced /x/. The orthography compromises by spelling it _zh_, as in
_Brezhoneg_, 'Breton', or _Breizh_, 'Brittany'.

le meas,

Ãosac Mac DÃ¡ibhidh/Isaac M. Davis

-- 

Westron wynd, when wilt thou blow
The smalle rain down can rain
Christ yf my love were in my arms
And I yn my bed again 

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From: R. F. Hahn [sassisch at yahoo.com]
Subject: Phonology

David, you may be right in suspecting that interdentals are not very enduring. 
They seem to have a tendency toward disappearing.  And, yes, they sound very
similar to [f] and [v] to many, thus can be a source or confusion.

Apparently there are several theories regarding the origin of Castilian [Î¸].  The
most commonly accepted is that the voiced alveolar affricate /dz/ (written _z_)
merged with voiceless /ts/ (written _Ã§_, or _c_ before /e/ and /i/), and then
/ts/ evolved into the interdental /T/, now written _z_, or _c_ before _e_ and
_i_.  Bear in mind that in most Romance varieties /t/ and /d/ (and the rest of
the series) are not alveo-dental as in Germanic but are dental, that an
affricate-to-fricative shift could thus easily go the interdental way.  This
shift predominates in coastal areas ("ceceo dialects"), while the shift to [s]
("seseo dialects") predominate in inland areas and in the general Seville area,
and it is these dialects that came to dominate in the Americas.  In the "ceceo"
dialects, we could talk about a need for dissimilation resulting in former /dz/
and /ts/ having gone interdental and /s/ having gone alveolar, an increased
distance thus having been created.  I am not sure anyone has dared to explain all
this in terms of substrates and influences.

Isaac, I had in mind (long extinct) Continental Celtic varieties, specifically
those of the Alpine areas that came to be Romanized and/or Germanized.
Specifically, I had in mind Southern or "Cisalpine" Celtic varieties, namely
those often referred to as Lepontic, or, more precisely, the northernmost
varieties of these that came into contact with Alemannic. However, it seems that
direct Celto-Germanic contacts were rare in that region, that the Celts first
became Romanized. In other words, those were Celts that spoke Romance varieties
but retained ethnic Celtic awareness or labels. (Note the old German name
_Welsch_ for Romance-speaking neighbors.)

It is true that in Gaulish writing we find the Greek-derived letters Î˜ and Ã/Ã°. 
But it is generally agreed that these did not represent interdentals but /t/ (~
/d/) and /ts/ (~ /dz/), since they tend to be used interchangeably with t, d, ts
and ds, possibly representing dentals rather than alveodentals. In brief, Gaulish
does not seem to have had interdentals.

As far as I know, Breton is not a Continental Celtic language but a British
(Brythonic) one that was exported by Romano-British settlers to what is now
Britanny. It is popularly assumed that it is a remnant of Gaulish, but this is
false. (Similarly, it is popularly assumed that Scottish Gaelic is native to
Scotland, but in reality it is derived from imported (Goidelic) Irish, possibly
with (Brythonic) Pictic substrates.)

Regards,
Reinhard/Ron

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