The palatal sham :) (Re: [tied] Re: Albanian (1))

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "elmeras2000" <jer@...> wrote:

> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "tgpedersen" <tgpedersen@...>
> wrote:
>
> > The idea is that from a binary
> > alternation it is possible to generalize/regularise in two ways,
> > which will give rise to a 'shibboleth relationship' between the
> two
> > alternatives, which then will spread to the rest of the language.
> In
> > the given case, the depalatalisation that was made presumably by
> the
> > large urban German-speaking population in Denmark in order to
> > overcome the difficulties in verbal etc inflection, spread from
> there
> > to all palatal velars, also that of <Kjøbenhavn>.
>
> So your claim that palatal consonants can only be depalatalised if
> they are part of a paradigm in which palatals alternate with non-
> palatals is now broadened so that depalatalisation can also occur
> without this restriction. I believe that.
>

I don't know why I get this feeling that you are being sarcastic. Let
me try to be more precise. Palatals can be depalatalised only if they
occur in alternating paradigms somewhere in the language, in which
case they _might_ spread to non-alternating environments. But without
the alternation depalatalisation won't get started in the first place.

Torsten