Re: beyond langauges

At 8:23:00 PM on Saturday, May 3, 2008, jouppe wrote:

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

>> At 7:27:11 AM on Saturday, May 3, 2008, jouppe wrote:

>> [...]

>>> Another observation of a contrary development: Modern
>>> Icelandic treats Old Norse geminated -ll- in an odd
>>> fashion, it becomes devoiced and a precursory -t- is
>>> inserted into the pronounciation, for example <gull>
>>> [gutL] (where capital L is used for voiceless lateral).

>> This isn't relevant to your point, but it's actually
>> closer to [gYtL].

> It's sort of a close rounded central vowel. I have almost
> the same in my dialect as well in exactly the same
> word/position. It is not a lot more front than <oo> in
> <boot>.

I certainly agree that it's more central than front, but it
still sounds to me closer to [Y]. And I seem not to be
alone, since it's often transcribed that way. (Though I
have also seen [ø].)

>>> Maybe a Celtic substratum here, does not welsh have
>>> voiceless laterals?

>> Yes, but I believe that they're a relatively late
>> development, at least as a distinct phoneme. If I
>> remember correctly, Jackson thought it was probably fully
>> established by the tenth century but not a whole lot
>> earlier, since it doesn't seem to have been recognized
>> earlier as a distinctive sound by the Anglo-Saxons.

> Irish would actually be more relevant to the Icelandic
> history.

Agreed. But it doesn't have [L]. Sc.Gael. does have
pre-aspiration, but I'm inclined to think that it got it
from ON, not the reverse.

>>> The interesting point is that AFAIK Icelandic has no
>>> contrastive consonant length,

>> If you analyze it as having contrastive consonant length,
>> I'm pretty sure that vowel length becomes completely
>> predictable. E.g., <grunnur> 'foundation, base; ground',
>> with [n:], must have [Y], while <grunur> 'suspicion', with
>> [n], must have [Y:]. This does result in a few odd-looking
>> realizations, e.g., [hp] for /p:/ and [tL] for /l:/, but I
>> don't know of any real obstacles.

> In standard Swedish, which historically has done almost
> exactly the same with phoneme length as Icelandic, the
> consonant length is usually explained as a function of
> vowel length and not vice versa (not my dialect by the
> way, which upholds a more archaic system than Icelandic).

[...]

> In Icelandic you would also have to add extra rules for
> pairs like traust 'trust' and thröstur 'thrush' (why does
> -st- allow for a long diphtong/vowel in one word and
> produces a short one in another?).

For that pair I'll have to rely on my written sources, which
make both short.

> It surely becomes more messy with mofphophonemics also (
> e.g. Cv:-st in monosyllabic words)

Not sure what you're getting at here; example?

> It is easier to explain the consonant lenthening, with
> whatever preaspiration or "preplosivation", as allophonic
> after short vowels.

I admit to a bias towards analyses that accord with the
diachronic facts, but I still don't see any strong reason to
prefer your approach.

Brian