Re: [tied] Re: crows and the glottalic theory

On Tue, 12 Nov 2002 12:24:13 -0000, "Richard Wordingham"
<richard.wordingham@...> wrote:

>--- In cybalist@..., Miguel Carrasquer <mcv@...> wrote:
>> On Thu, 07 Nov 2002 14:33:09 -0000, "Richard Wordingham"
>> <richard.wordingham@...> wrote:
>>
>> Old Welsh and Irish use the spelling <p>, <t>, <c>
>> for /b/, /d/, /g/, which is nothing strange in a two-way opposition
>> /t/ = [th] ~ /d/ = [d.] ~ [t] (cf. also English, where initial and
>> final /d/ are voiceless [d.] ~ [t]).
>
>I'd always understood that the Old Welsh use of <t> for what is now
>post-vocalic /d/ reflected the lenition that created the soft
>mutation. (I can't explain the reported Irish use.)

The odd thing is that the spelling does not reflect the lenitions, so
we have <t> for what is later t- / -d-, and <d> for what is later d- /
-dd-. Perhaps this reflects [th-]/[-t-] vs. [d-]/[-D-] (there is
also -tt-, later -t- for aspirated medial [th]).

>> The High German shift is then comparable to the
>> second part of Grimm's law: the aspirate becomes a fricative (or
>> affricate), the non-aspirate becomes unvoiced and aspirated
>> (High German /t/ = [th] > /ts/, /ss/, /d/ = [d.] > /t/ = [th]).
>
>Isn't the ultimate [th] North German, presumably the effect of the
>Low German substrate?

Is it? Is /t/ unaspirated in Southern German?

>I've done a net search on tonogenesis, and the best I can come up
>with is
>http://www.csuchico.edu/~gt18/Papers/Vietnamese&tonogenesis.pdf .
>According to that source, initial voiced aspirates (i.e. breathy)
>consonants, like other voiced consonants (especially obstruents)
>lower tone. 'Creaky voice' raises pitch. The paper didn't say what
>typically causes creaky voice.
>
>Final /h/ and final 'incomplete' /?/ - 'creaky tone' or 'vocal fry' -
>lower pitch at the end of the syllable. Conversely, final /h\/
>(voiced partner of /h/) and final abrupt /?/ raise pitch at the end
>of the syllable. These modifications may affect the whole syllable
>rather than just the end.
>
>In Panjabi, is Miguel talking of voiceless aspirates or voiced
>aspirates?

Voiced aspirates (Skt. bh, dh, ...) become /p/, /t/ + low tone in
Panjabi. In Sindhi, the voiced non-aspirates (Skt. b, d, ...) are
pre-glottalized /'b/, /'d/, ...

>The Danish example does not look at all convincing. What happened in
>Latvian?

The Latvian broken tone represents an old acute (rising) tone in an
initial syllable, where the stress used to be on another syllable in
the word (in Latvian the stress has been always retracted to the first
syllable). So Lith. líepa, galvà = Latv. lie~pa (long tone =
originally accented acute), gal^va (broken tone = originally
unaccented acute). The Baltic circumflex (~) is continued in the
Latvian falling tone (`).


=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
mcv@...