Re: re Voiced affricatives in English dialects [was: re [tied] Anim

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Brian M. Scott" <BMScott@...>
wrote:

> At 5:02:04 AM on Monday, September 8, 2003, tgpedersen wrote:
>
> > --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Gordon Selway
> > <gordonselway@...> wrote:
>
>
> >> Not sure what to make of this. I''m not sure how far the
> >> voicing of stops which is one of the features of the
> >> change form Brittonic to Welsh (eg Lat. 'medicus' (?or Br
> >> 'medicos') -> W 'meddyg') was areal. And I'm certainly
> >> not suggesting that 'language is in the genes'!
>
> > If a general 'voicing of the stops' is what it is. I
> > proposed that it might an old Germanic dialect difference
> > going back to Verner.
>
> In this case it's a British phenomenon, not Germanic, and
> it's not precisely a general voicing of stops. It's a
> voicing of medial and final (but not initial) unvoiced stops
> and an accompanying lenition of voiced stops to voiced
> fricatives. Similar but not identical changes occurred in
> Continental Vulgar Latin.

And in Danish. It seemed to me Gordon was confusing that phenomenon
with that of voiced initial continuants, which occurs in the English
dialects he mentioned, and in Dutch and Southern German. That was
what I pointed out, which you then re-pointed out.

Torsten