Re: aspirated m?

Quoting Carsten Becker <naranoieati@...>:

> Manayang váris! *)
>
> On Wednesday 24 November 2004 05:41, Kris Kowal wrote:
>
> > > --- Isaac Penzev skrev:
> > > > AFAIK, voiceless nasals are separate phonemes in
> > > > Burmese (Myanmar).
> > >
> > > And several Native American languages, not to mention
> > > at least one of Tolkien's conlangs (if that counts).
> >
> > Huh?  Either you know something about Telerin or Ilkorin
> > that I don't, but I don't believe that any of Tolkien's
> > conlangs have voicles nasals.
>
> AFAIK, in Sindarin, one of the mutations of [m] is [m_0],
> which later became [v]. That's also why "vellon" can be
> written as "mhellon" when this mutation applies, but is
> still pronounced ["vEl:On].
I'm not aware of any reason to think that Sindarin 'mh' is supposed to represent
[m_0], which moreover would be highly odd as a Sindarin lenition product (it
would mean turning a voiced sound into a voiceless one, which is highly
unlenitionlike, and quite contrary to the general patterns of Sindarin
sound-changes).

The standard interpretation is that it represents the "spirant m" or "nasal v"
said to occur in archaic Sindarin. The CXS would be [v~], I guess, or [B~] if
still bilabial. This is much more in line with general patterns, and makes it
much easier to understand how it could turn into [v] in later Sindarin.

> Though "mellon" is Quenya I
> thought, or did they keep it unchanged in Sindarin?
It's Sindarin. From *_mel-do-ondo_, I suppose, where _mel_ is the verbal stem
"to love (as a friend)", _-do_ a masculine agental ending, and _-ondo_ an
augmentative ending. In Quenya, we've got _meldo_ "(male) friend".

                                                         Andreas