Re: A sound change question...

Steg Belsky sikyal:

> On Tue, 5 Aug 2003 16:17:32 -0400 "E. Notagain" <ecg321@...> writes:
> > This has probably been asked before, but what is /w/ most likely to
> > turn into?
> > -- Erin Notagain --
> -
>
> Well, here are some realworld /w/ shifts that i've heard of:
>
> /w/ to /j/ (Northwest Semitic, including Hebrew), especially at the
> beginning of a word
> /w/ to /v/ (Hebrew as well as some Romance languages)
> /w/ to nothing (some Ancient Greek dialects)
> /w/ to /u/ (some Spanish dialects), de-diphthonging diphthongs
> /w/ to /gw/ (some spanish dialects, Germanic borrowings into Romance)
>
> Some other /w/ shifts that seem (at least to me) possible, but i can't
> think of any natlang examples:
>
> /w/ to |voiceless W|
> /w/ to /B/ (bilabial voiced fricative)
Occurs in many dialects of Russian. More accurately, the sound spelled
with the Cyrillic letter B, which descends from *w, is pronounced [B] in
many Russian dialects. (It also occurs in Yivrian :) ).

> /w/ to bilabial approximant (/w/ without the velar part)
> /w/ to velar approximant (/w/ without the labial part)
> /w/ to /b/
/w/ > /b/ seems unlikely to me, though the reverse /b/ > /w/ is attested,
I believe. I can only see this happening in some specific environment,
such as mw > mbw > mb.

> /w/ to rounding on adjacent sounds, i.e. /...wb.../ to /...b<w>.../, /Mw/
> to /u/, etc.
This happens, sort of, in Latin > Spanish. L AVRVM [awrum] to Sp oro
[oro].


--
Jesse S. Bangs jaspax@u.washington.edu
http://students.washington.edu/jaspax/
http://students.washington.edu/jaspax/blog

Jesus asked them, "Who do you say that I am?"

And they answered, "You are the eschatological manifestation of the ground
of our being, the kerygma in which we find the ultimate meaning of our
interpersonal relationship."

And Jesus said, "What?"

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