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Re: x > f sound change

From:Matthew Pearson <matthew.pearson@...>
Date:Thursday, September 13, 2001, 18:10
--- You wrote:
BP Jonsson wrote:


>I've just got hands-on evidence that the /x/ > /f/ sound change as in >English _tough_ is a natural one: >In my dialect of Swedish the normal pronunciation of _garage_ is /ga"rA:x/, >but my son (who is 3 1/2 years old) says /ga"rA:f/ very >clearly. Sound-change in the making!
There's also German _luft_ vs. Dutch _lucht_, though IIRC that's unique; probably ultimately a dialect form. Another: Germ. Stiftung, Du. stichting; unclear exactly what the base forms are. --- end of quote --- There's also the name McLoughlin (or McLaughlin), which was originally [m@klaxl@n], but which many people pronounce [m@klafl@n]. There are lots of precedents out there for velar sounds (especially labiovelar ones) changing into bilabials, and vice versa. /kw/ > /p/ is a common sound change in many language families, and is even found in Indo-European (cf. Latin _quinque_ /kwiNkwe/ "five" with Welsh _pump_ /pymp, pimp/). /x/ > /f/ is less common, but clearly not unattested. Although /x/ and /f/ differ radically in terms of how they're articulated, acoustically they're actually pretty similar (much more similar than, say, /s/ and /f/, or /s/ and /x/). Matt. Matt Pearson Department of Linguistics Reed College 3203 SE Woodstock Blvd Portland, OR 97202 USA ph: 503-771-1112 (x 7618)

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Padraic Brown <pbrown@...>