Re: Nasal semivowels/fricatives?

At 10:29 am -0700 16/2/00, dirk elzinga wrote:
[....]
>
>In Shoshoni, there are lenition processes which affect
>underlying voiceless stops and nasals. One of these alternates a
>voiceless stop with a voiced fricative in intervocalic position:
>
>        [pia]      'mother'
>        [nyBia]    'my mother'
>
>        [kasa]     'wing'
>        [nyGasa]   'my wing'
>
>And so on. This process also applies to nasals [m, n] to yield a
>nasalized [w] and a nasalized [y] or tap:
>
>        [mo'o]     'hand'
>        [nyw~o'o]  'my hand'
>
>        [naiBi]    'girl'
>        [nyr~aiBi] 'my girl'
Interesting.
The Celtic langs, as is well known, also have lenition of consonants.  In
all of them [m] is subject to lenition - usually to [v], tho in Gaelic IIRC
it is [w] in association with 'broad' (i.e. back) vowels; I believe some
Irish forms have the preceeding vowel nasalized.   But neither [n] or [N]
are subject to similar lenition.  I've never understood why this should be
so.  Shoshoni seems more consistent in this respect.

Ray.

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