Re: USAGE: Yet another few questions about Welsh.

MJR>I've read of this "weakening"/lenition process in spoken Latin (before
MJR>the Romance diversification, therefore common to all Romance languages)

My mistake.  It happened in Western spoken Latin and is therefore
common to Western Romance languages.

MJR> 4. geminate voiceless stops became simple voiceless stops.

RB> There is, however, a difference here. Geminate voiceless plosives/stops
RB> became voiceless fricatives, e.g. catto- (cat) --> Welsh: cath, Cornish:
RB> kath, Breton: kazh /kaz/ or /kah/ (depending on dialect <-- */kaT/);
RB> Britto:nica (British [language])--> Welsh: Brythoneg, Cornish: Brithonek,
RB> Breton: Brezhoneg.

I assume from the orthography that an analogous process happened in
other consonant groups as well - for instance, <ll>=/K/ was presumably
at one time /l:/, and something analogous to the VL geminate step happened
with the fricatives, hence <ff>=/f:/=>/f/ (while  <f>=/f/=>/v/).  Right?

> Cf. Old French:
French  overdid it, I think.  Way too many things went to zero. :)

-Mark

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