Re: [tied] Re: Mercury and lead

On Sat, 24 Mar 2001 10:13:54 -0000, tgpedersen@... wrote:

>At that time, x was pronounced as sh, and j as zh (the voiced
>equivalent). This is the same situation as in Portuguese today and in
>older French (I have no date for this), e.g. <chevaux>, pl. of
><cheval> would be pronounced cheváush (sort of portuguese-like
>inflection, yes?).

<chevaux> (< CABALLOS): the <ch-> was /c^/ (out of palatalized /k^/
before front /a/ > /e/), now /s^/. /c^eval~s/ > /c^evaus/, but the
former ending -ls was preserved in the manuscripts as a ligature -X,
hence <chevaux>.

>At a certain time sh -> kh, and zh -> kh, the present day
>pronounciation of the letter j.

Rather:

/s^/ -> /x/
/z^/ -> /s^/ -> /x/

The development /z^/ > /s^/ is related to the total elimination in
Castilian (and Valencian "apitxat" Catalan) of voiced fricatives (/v/

> /b/; /z/ > /s/; /dz/ > /ts/ > /T/; /z^/ > /s^/ > /x/). But then the

most common allophone of the voiced stops is a voiced continuant ([b]
~ [B], [d] ~ [D], [g] ~ [G]).

>Since now both the letters j and x
>were pronounced the same, the letter x was generally replaced by j in
>Spanish orthography.

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