Re: Reasonable sound changes.

From:    Carsten Becker <naranoieati@...>
> bob thornton <arcanesock@...> wrote:
> > First great sound change:
> > [...]
> > /k_w/ -> /p/
>
> I don't know much about sound changes, but this feels a little
> strange. "QU" changes into "P", doesn't it?
No, it's not a strange change at all.  It happened in both Greek
and Latin:  PIE *gwous > Greek _bous_, Latin  _bo:s_.  Greek also
had a change (in other environments) *kw > t, as in *kwis > tis 'what,
who'. Many other languages, too.

> >Second great sound change:
> >
> >Plosive clusters simplify, i.e /kt/ -> /k/, etc.
>
> Italian has it just the other way round as far as I know, i.e.
> [kt] -> [t] or maybe [?t].
This is totally a matter of syllable structure.  Italian geminates
arose in this way because they happened to fall across a syllable
boundary.  In many English dialects, however, "act" is /&k/ because
no such following syllable was present to host the extra segmental
material.

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