Richard Wordingham wrote:

--- In Nostratic-L@yahoogroups.com, "hubeyh" <HubeyH@M...> wrote:
--- In Nostratic-L@yahoogroups.com, "H.M. Hubey" <HubeyH@M...> wrote:
in Message 350 at Nostratic-L.

This refers to http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Nostratic-L/files/
>> Ok. Here is yet another effort.

I presume we are looking at intervocalic lenition sequences.  CV
*words* starting with plosives seem to start voicelessly by default. 
On the hand, nasals seem to be voiced by default.

>> We can collaboratively put some lines around these things and
delineate
>> approximants, liquids, glides, semivowels, etc.


> Now for the arrows:
> Examples:

> Voicing:        apa > aba

Failure to switch voicing off.

Yes

Possibly the effort lies in the
switching.  I'm not persuaded that this has anything to do with
tightness of constrictions.

Fricatives seem more prone to intervocalic voicing.  Also, stress (or
rather lack of it) can play a role - cf. Verner's law, and similar
phenomena in English.  Geminate plosives seem to be most resistant to
its effects.

What happens with aspirated plosives?

> Frication:      aka > axa ; apa > afa

Failure to constrict. 

yes

Geminate plosives generally resist this
change.  Is there a pattern to the behaviour of plosive plus
consonant?  Hebrew (generally) fricativises post-vocalic plosives.

Are there regularities as to what changes first or last?  The Hebrew
emphatics (what were they?) "t." and "q" resisted this change.

> Voicing and Frication:   aka > agha ;  apa > ava
I'd decompose this into a two step process.

why?

Fricativisation: aga > aGa; aba > aBa

How does this correlate with the fricativisation of voiceless
plosives?  I would suspect not well, given that Welsh appears to show
concurrent -p- > -b- and -b- > -v-.

The Insular Celtic languages show related fricativisation -m- > -v~-
.  (I'm sure if the nasalisation is attested in Brythonic.)  The
nasalisation tends to be realised on the preceding(?) vowel, but it
doesn't seem unusual for nasalisation associated with a consonant to
be realised on the vowel, and for there to be no free-standing
nasalisation.  A similar phenomenon occurs with rhinoglottophilia as
well.

What happens with 'aspirated' voiced plosives?

> These changes must occur in all the languages.
They're potential changes.  Slavonic seems to have resisted them for
several millenia.

> So does it look like a generic/general rule?

> What others are needed?

Richard.



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