Re: [tied] change

Miguel Carrasquer wrote:

> On Sat, 11 Oct 2003 12:51:23 +0200, alex <alxmoeller@...>
> wrote:
>
>> which is the explanation for changing of "mb" to ""ng" in Old French
>> if the Latin word have had "mb" and the celtic word (the Latin word
>> is assumed to be borrowed from Celtic) have had "mb" too?
>> I am speaking here about english "change" from Late Latin "cambire"
>> via Old French "changier" ultimately from PIE *(s)kemb- /*kamb.
>> In fact I wonder for this mb > ng since I was aware just of "ng" >
>> "mb" due labialisation of the cluster.
>
> The change is in fact /bj/ > /z^/ (sabio > saz^, cambiare > s^a~z^e,
> etc.).
>
>
> =======================
> Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
> mcv@...

hei, that is indeed nice:-).I suppose the explanation for "m" > "n" is
that "mz^-" group is indeed hard to pronounce, thus after the /mbj/ >
/mz^/, then /mz^/ > /nz^/ which is indeed, pronounceable. The word is
though made up by two syllables and the consonant croup is broken since
every konson here (m, and z^) belongs to different syllable, thus the
pronounciation won't be hard in French chan-ge versus cham-ge. In
English the word "*chamge" it should have been a problem,indeed since in
English the word is a monosyllabic.

Alex