Re: [tied] Nominative: A hybrid view

On Fri, 23 May 2003 01:12:23 +0200 (MET DST), Jens Elmegaard Rasmussen
<jer@...> wrote:

>Again, this is not a relevant objection. I am not suggesting that /z/ was
>ever *more frequent* than /s/ in the prehistory of PIE, let alone that it
>was the *only* sibilant of the language; I am merely saying they both
>existed, as separate phonemes which later coalesced. It would be much as
>in the many IE languages where the voiced aspirates fell in with the
>voiced unaspirated stops by loss of the once-distinctive feature. For
>sibilants I would guess it has actually taken place in Spanish, but I am
>outside of my field there. There is certainly nothing revolting about a
>merger /s/ : /z/ => /s/.

In Spanish, all voiced fricatives have merged with the voiceless ones
(except /v/ -> /b/): /z/ > /s/, /dz/ > /T/, /dz^/ > /z^/ > /s^/ > /x/.
Likewise in the Catalan from València ("apitxat"): /v/ > /b/, /z/ >
/s/, /dz^/ > /c^/, /z^/ > /s^/.

The same tendency can also be seen e.g. in colloquial Holland Dutch
(/v/ > /f/, /z/ > /s/, /G/ > /x/).

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