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Re: Fricativization as it happens

From:R A Brown <ray@...>
Date:Monday, January 26, 2009, 17:32
Matthew Turnbull wrote:
> where do we have /ph/? we have <ph>=/f/, but /ph/?
haphazard, uphill ------------------------------------------------ Ollock Ackeop wrote: [snip] > > BTW, is <ph>=/f/ really from a sound change in English anywhere? I had Nope. > presumed it came down from Greek terms -- some of them maybe borrowed > through French. You presume correctly. Altho when the Romans transcribed Greek phi as _ph_ it was pronounced [p_h] in educated speech, the graffiti _Dafne_ (= Daphne) from Pompeii is a pretty clear indication that the change [p_h] --> [f] was already underway in popular speech by the mid 1st cent. CE, and seems to have become general in all levels of speech before the end of the 4th cent. CE. When words of Greek origin were borrowed into English _ph_ was already pronounced [f]; it wasn't a change that happened in English.
> We obviously still have [p_h] as well as [ph].
Yep = every initial /p/ is [p_h] of course, and we have [ph] in in the words I gave above. it also occurs in some pronunciations of _shepherd_, and I suspect in a few other words as well. -- Ray ================================== http://www.carolandray.plus.com ================================== CENEDL HEB IAITH, CENEDL HEB GALON. (A nation without a language is a nation without a heart) [Welsh proverb]

Replies

Lars Finsen <lars.finsen@...>
Paul Kershaw <ptkershaw@...>