Re: initial mutation or trigger? Re: re Mutations

It's not the same thing; "a" becomes "an" purely for purposes of liaison. No
grammatical changes are involved. Mutations may have been
phonological in origin, but they always generate grammatical changes. For
example in Welsh, feminine singular nouns are mutated after the
definite article whereas masculine ones aren't.
Mike
>
> Well, it seems to me that what we were talking about was pretty much the
> opposite of that.  The meaning doesn't change, but one of the sounds
> does, do to the phonetic environment.  I mean, I don't know Welsh, but
> the initial consonant mutation seems fundamentally similar to the final
> consonant mutation in the English indefinite article: the final
> consonant is normally zero, but becomes [n] before a vowel.
>
> -Marcos