LL-L "Phonology" 2012.01.04 (02) [EN]

[Lowlands-L]

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 L O W L A N D S - L - 04 January 2012 - Volume 01
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From: Ingmar Roerdinkholder <roerd096 at PLANET.NL>
Subject: LL-L "Phonology" 2012.01.02 (02) [EN]


Happy New Year!

Funny, our youngest son used to say "leh!" [lE] as a baby, so we told
eachother he was asking for milk, in French (lait).

I doubt though if "puh!" can be called metathesis from "up", why would P be
aspirated then?
In Dutch "puh!" is the word children use when sticking their tongue out, to
make fun of or ridiculize someone.
So maybe that's how the little rabbi's son is telling you what he thinks of
you  ;-)

Ingmar


From: R. F. Hahn <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Phonology

Dear Lowlanders,

Lately we have been mentioning phonological metathesis again, namely
triggered by the words sporkel and sprokkel. There are numerous cases of
metathesis amongst the Germanic languages, the Lowlands group included.

First of all, what are we talking about here?

Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metathesis_%28linguistics%29):

Metathesis (English pronunciation: /məˈtæθəsɪs/; from Greek μετά-θε-σις,
from μετα-τί-θη-μι "I put in a different order": Latin trānspositiō) is the
re-arranging of sounds or syllables in a word, or of words in a sentence.
Most commonly it refers to the switching of two or more contiguous sounds,
known as adjacent metathesis[1] or local metathesis:[2]

foliage → **foilage
cavalry → **calvary
Metathesis may also involve switching non-contiguous sounds, known as
nonadjacent metathesis, long-distance metathesis,[1] or hyperthesis:[3]

Latin parabola > Spanish palabra 'word'
Latin miraculum > Spanish milagro 'miracle'
Many languages have words that show this phenomenon, and some use it as a
regular part of their grammar (e.g. the Fur language). The process of
metathesis has altered the shape of many familiar words in the English
language, as well.

The original form before metathesis changed may be deduced from older forms
of words in the language's lexicon, or, if no forms are preserved, from
phonological reconstruction.

Within the context of sporkel and sprokkel, our Heiko mentioned his child's
"acts of metathesis." To further our understanding of this phonological
phenomenon, I really do believe that it behooves us to look at child's
language.

In actual fact, I wonder if what is at play here is a preference for more
"natural" or "primeval" syllable structures, and I wonder if this
preference is programmed in us (in the form of ease of pronunciation) and
at least in part accounts for cases of metathesis. In other words, certain
syllable structures are "more natural" and possibly more archaic than
otherstructures are perceived as being easiest to pronounce.

Among phonologists, much has been made in recent decades about primeval
syllable structure, and it has been postulated that the structure #CV# is
the mother of all syllable types. (C = consonant, V = vowel, # = syllable
boundary) To put it simply, papa would be more natural than pap or ap, not
to mention arp, parp, palp, pamp, plap, plarp, etc.

Little Jonah, my rabbi's 1+-year old son, tends to throw his arms up at
adults and say, "Puh!" ([pʰʌ]). I interpret this as a metathesized form of
"Up!" ([ʔʌp]). (In other words, he wants you to pick him up.) Would you
agree with this?

Do you have any further thoughts or inside into the phenomenon of
metathesis and "naturalness" of syllable structures?

Regards,
Reinhard/Ron
Seattle, USA**

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From: Ingmar Roerdinkholder <roerd096 at PLANET.NL>
Subject: LL-L "Language varietiess" [EN]

I think there may be a connection with what's called dyslexia and
metathesis. Our youngest son, now eight years old, has some difficulties
learning to read properly, the teacher thinks he may be dyslectic.
And in his speech, whether he's reading our just speaking,  metathesis
regularly occurs, especially in longer, difficult or 'learned' words. E.g.
 navigatie-systeem becomes nagivatie-styseem (car navigation system),
parkeerplaats becomes karpeerplaats (parking place) etc.
Nowadays, this kind of "mistakes" will be corrected in school of course,
but in times that people didn't go to school or even didn't write at all,
whole populations could speak that way. Especially when we realize that
there must have been hundreds of different languages spoken next to
eachother in areas where there are now only a few, and I guess in new
mother language learning processes, there will have occured a lot of
metathesis and other interesting features as well. A good example are the
creole languages, or the differences between the Romance languages and
dialects.

Ingmar

Ingmar

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