Re: [tied] Re: Slavic palatalistions: why /c^/, /c/?

Richard Wordingham wrote:

> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "tgpedersen" <tgpedersen@...> wrote:

>>As far as I know, the "natural" development of palatalisation is
>>k > c^ > c > s^ > s. So /c/ should be more front than /c^/, but in
>>this case /c^/ and /c/ go together with (/e/, /i/) and (/oy/, /ay/)
>>respectively, of which the former is more front than the latter.
>>That puzzles me, how did the results of last palatalisation "pass"
>>the the results of the first, on their "way to the front"?
>
>
> As far as I'm aware, the paths are:
>
> k > c^ > c > s
> k > c^ > s^ > s
> and k > c > s
>
> Old French has the 'first palatalisation' k > c (no comment on
> intermediate stages), i.e. the Common Romance palatalisation, and a
> 'second palatalisation' k > c^ before original Latin *a. These thave
> simplified c > s and c^ > s^, as in _cent chevaux_ from _centum
> caballos_ 'a hundred horses'.
>
> As to the overtaking, the 'first palatalisation' was k > c^ in Picard
> and the second was k > c, so there's nothing unique about Slavic. I
> think k > c directly is indeed possible.

The transition from a dorso-palatal stop [k'] to a predorso-postalveolar
one [t'] (= <ty>) is continuous; both, and especially the latter,
involve a large area of contact between the tongue body and the roof of
the mouth, and so strongly tend to be affricated, becoming [c'], which
may then change into a laminal or apical [c].

> As an indication of the independence of paths, you might like to also
> consider the Romance softening /k/ > /c^/ in Romanian with the
> Daco-Romance softening /t/ > /c/ (i.e. '<tz>').

Note also the Albanian palatalisations:

*k^ > *c > th [T] (not conditioned by vowel quality);
*kW and *k^w > *c^(W) > s (before front vowels, the second change
probably via post-PAlb. [c], thus avoiding collision with *s > sh [s^]);
*k > q [k'] (recent palatalisation before front vowels and in the
cluster *kl).

Piotr