Re: [tied] Further question on Polish and a question on IE languages

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Piotr Gasiorowski" <gpiotr@...>
wrote:

>
> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Grzegorz Jagodzinski"
> <grzegorj2000@> wrote:
>
> > Now my question. Are similar spontaneous dispalatalizations common
> among the
> > IE family? Among the languages of the world? And a related

question

> - if
> > such spontaneous dispalatalizations are documented, even if rare,
> why should
> > we reject the hypothesis of the existence of palatal (or at least
> prevelar)
> > series as long ago as in the common IE period?
>

The only example of depalatalisation I'm aware of is Danish.

> To "dispalatalise" a true palatal, however, would mean to take its
> primary place of articulation away (like "delabialising" /b/, for
> example). One wonders what would remain after such an operation --

the

> glottal component? A change from a palatal stop to a velar one is
> therefore an example of retraction, not of dispalatalisation, just

as

> the reverse change is fronting, not "develarisation". The natural
> evolutionary dynamics in the case of true palatal stops makes them
> prone to further fronting rather than retraction, since, because of
> their very long contact area and their tendency to develop audible
> palatal fricative release they are more readily confusible by
> listeners with prepalatal or postalveolar affricates than with

velars.

>
> > Btw., it is often thought that the process of k^, g^, g^h > k, g,

gh

> looks
> > inbelievable as only fronting development of palatal is attested.
> But if I
> > am not mistaken, a similar process "prevelar > velar" is known

from

> some
> > Polish dialects, including the urban dialect of Warsaw. And, if

it is

> > possible in Polish, why not in PIE?
> >
> > Of course, the difference between Polish velars and prevelars
> (incorrectly
> > termed "palatals" in some sources) is less than between IPA [k]

and

> [c]. But
> > why should we believe that PIE k^, g^, g^h were palatals? Couldn't
> they be
> > just prevelars instead? If yes, their retreating and mixing with

the

> > original velars in Centum would be easier to believe in. And the

Polish

> > dialectal processes (does anybody know examples from other
> languages?) would
> > be the needed attestation.
> >
>
> Of course they _could_ be prevelars, and since prevelars are

modified

> velars (articulated near the front of the velum and accompanied by
> palatalised release), the modification may be cancelled as easily as
> the palatal accompaniment of coronal obstruents. You are absolutely
> right that a change from such a segment to a plain velar is much
> easier to believe in than the spontaneous retraction of a true

palatal

> (IPA [c]).
>

So, in other words, it was *kj > *k, *gj > *g, *ghj > *gh, and not
*c^> *k, *d3 > *g, *d3h > *gh? That's what happened in Danish. Now
all we need to look for is a motive for that change, and
generalisation of allophones is the the only one I've been able to
imagine until now. Any other proposals?

Would those Polish dialects in which dispalatalisation occurs have
been influenced by a language with no palatalisation, like German vel
sim.?

BTW a sociological observation: those that invented the whole
nationalism/linguistics/romanticism thing were often German speakers,
since that was the custom they rebeled against, although their local
language of desire was another one. Thus you'd expect Germanisms to
enter the local language (here: Danish) as it suddenly becomes hip.


Torsten