--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "alex" <alxmoeller@...> wrote:
> -why one has to speak about the threatment of clusters "kt", "ks"
but
> not about the treatment of "c" before dental/siflant?
Linguists are taught to think of speech, rather than writing as
primary. The phonetic symbol for the sound of Latin "c" (I should
use angle brackets <c> to denote a spelling, but this construction
sometimes get misinterpreted as an HTML tag, so I'm using the quote
instead) is /k/. Therefore, rather than talk of Latin "ct" or "x"
when talking of changes in speech, they prefer to talk of /kt/
or /ks/.
> I put this question since the examples with germanic development
of "ks"
> seems unsatisfactory to me. I don't see any difference between the
> develpoment of "k" > "h" and the development "kt" in "ht" or "ks"
in
> "hs" this is why I am asking for some explanation.
For Germanic, the best present-day examples may be in the spelling
of the grossly irregular weak pasts in English, such as _teach_,
_taught_ (cf. "token"); _think_, _thought_; _seek_, _sought_;
_work_, _wrought_ (archaic). Modern English "ght" descends from Old
English "ht", where as the velar or affricate in the English words
goes back to Germanic *k, whose various descendant in Old English
were written "c". The Germanic *k in these words (or parallel
formations) has often become "ch" in German, so the change is not
always so visible - _Zeichen_ (noun, not verb); _denken_, dachte;
_suchen_ (regular!); _wirken_ (OHG _wirchen_ - the modern from may
be Low German) (regular!).
I hope this explanation helps.
Richard.