Re: Lenition

From: "Christian Thalmann" <cinga@...>
> I was quite flabbergasted myself, but I do have a theory by now.  =P
>
> I assume those people somehow confound hardness with loudness.
The contrary, actually, is easier to explain:  "soft" means "quiet" in
English--"speaking softly" is talking in low tones, or even whispering [=
devoicing].   (I dont know if this is association occurs in French or the other
non-anglophone langs on the list.)

Since "soft" is the opposite of "hard", hardness gets transferred to voicing by
analogy when people talk about "soft" and "hard" consonants in pairs.


    *Muke!
--
http://www.frath.net/