--- tgpedersen <
tgpedersen@...> wrote:
>
> > > > Gaelic acquired /p/ from Latin,
> > > > French and English --although Torsten is
> trying to
> > > > throw a monkey wrench into this by claiming a
> > > > substrate /p/ or whatnot.
> > >
> > > Could [p] have existed in a limited distribution
> in Gaelic, e.g.
> > > as an allophone of /b/, and subsequently [p]
> become phonemicized
> > > by the influence of foreign words? (Similar to
> the English story
> > > for /z/ and /v/) I don't know anything about
> Gaelic I'm afraid.
> >
> > There are a handful of words that do have an
> > unexplained <p>. Scots Gaelic, of course does have
> /p/
> > but as its realization on <b>.
>
> Oh. So there are no words in /b/ in Scots Gaelic?
In the pronunciation that I've usually seen, no. There
are supposedly no voiced stops. /b/ > /p/ and /p/ >
/ph/, as in Icelandic. But I've also read that
Southern Scots Gaelic is somehow different.
Here's what Wikipedia has to say:
Aspiration vs Voicing of Gaelic Stops
The "voiced" stops /b, d, g/ are not phonetically
voiced [+voice] in Gaelic, but rather voiceless
unaspirated. Thus Gaelic /b, d, g/ are really
phonetically [p, t, k] [-voice, -aspirated].
The "voiceless" stops /p, t, k/ are voiceless and
strongly aspirated (postaspirated in initial position,
preaspirated in medial or final position). That is, in
syllable onsets Gaelic /p, t, k/ are phonetically
[ph,th,kh], but they are [hp,ht,xk] in syllable-final
position. Note that preaspirated stops can also be
found in Icelandic. Because of these facts, it can be
argued that Gaelic /p, t, k/ are [-voice, +aspirated].
In some Gaelic dialects, stops at the beginning of a
stressed syllable become voiced when they follow a
nasal consonant, for example: taigh 'a house' is
[tʰɤi] but an taigh 'the house' is [ən
dʰɤi]; cf. also tombaca 'tobacco'
[tʰomˈbaxkə].
>
> > Scots Gaelic has aspirated and pre-aspirated
> stops, which it
> > acquired from Old Norse.
>
> Old Norse had that? Please explain.
>
From some dialect of Old Norse. The same phenomenon
shows up in Icelandic. Given that the Norse invaded
and settled in Scotland and there was no Scots
invasion of Iceland, it's more likely that the shared
phenomenon came from a dialect of Old Norse.
I don't have the Routledge Book on Celtic here is El
Salvador but it may have something to say about the
phenomenon.
Again, Wikipedia
Unlike many languages, Icelandic has only very minor
dialectal differences in sounds. The language has both
monophthongs and diphthongs, and consonants can be
voiced or unvoiced.
Voice plays a big role in the pronunciation of many
consonants. For most Icelandic consonants, there are
voiced and unvoiced counterparts. However, b, d, and g
are never voiced in Icelandic. These letters only
differ from p, t and k because p, t and k become
aspirated when they are the first letter of a word; b,
d and g do not.
See
http://www.phonetik.uni-muenchen.de/~hoole/kurse/artikul/icelandic.pdf
regarding pre-aspiration in Icelandic
see also
http://209.85.215.104/search?q=cache:OyjwS65E_HUJ:society.kisti.re.kr/~pmc/work/vol_07_1/cksuh.pdf+%2BIcelandic%2Bpre-aspiration&hl=es&ct=clnk&cd=6&gl=sv
Aspects of phonetics and phonology of Icelandic
preaspiration ∗ Chang-Kook Suh (Chonan
University) Suh, Chang-Kook. 2001. Aspects of
phonetics and phonology of Icelandic preaspiration.
Studies in Phonetics, Phonology and Morphology 7.1.
63-83. In this paper, I defend the claim that
preaspirated consonants in Icelandic (i.e. Icelandic
preaspiration) are the phonetic realization of an
aspirated geminate. This implies that preaspiration is
contingent on the length of consonants in stressed
syllables. The phonology creates an aspirated
geminate, and the phonetic component then interprets
that aspirated geminate as something that sounds like
preaspiration followed by a singleton consonant. For
those purposes, we first look at phonetic aspects of
preaspiration, and then show how we get aspirated
geminates, phonologically.Accordingly, we need to show
where the aspirated geminates come from (i.e.
underlying and derived). These are accounted for
through the interaction of the constraints in a
predicted way. (Chonan University)Keywords: Icelandic
preaspiration, geminate, constraints, Optimality
Theory