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Re: Tendencies of Sound Changes?

From:Benct Philip Jonsson <bpj@...>
Date:Thursday, March 30, 2006, 18:47
It is both: in many languages -- i.e. most Germanic
languages other than Dutch -- voiced tops and voiced
fricatives next to voiceless stops and voiceless
fricatives devoice, while in other -- very many --
languages voiceless stops and voiceless fricatives
next to (and especially between) voiced sounds
become voiced.  In Slavic languages a stop or fricative
changes to agree in voicing/devoicing with a following
stop or fricative.  Something similar goes on in Romance
and probably many other languages as well.

Aidan Grey skrev:
> It IS the opposite - cf Spanish, English (American 'water'), Welsh.... > > */Andreas Johansson <andjo@...>/* wrote: > > Quoting Carsten Becker : > > > Hello, > > > > Some time ago, I saw someone here mentioning that it's more > > likely for a voiced stop to devoice than for a unvoiced stop > > to voice. > > Really? I would have thought exactly the opposite ... > > Andreas > > > I know that in the realms of sound changes, > > basically everything is possible, but I wanted to ask if > > there are more rules like that? I already know that stops > > tend to be come affricates tend to become fricatives etc. > > and that this mechanism also works the other way round. > > > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > Yahoo! Messenger with Voice. Make PC-to-Phone Calls > <http://us.rd.yahoo.com/mail_us/taglines/postman1/*http://us.rd.yahoo.com/evt=39663/*http://voice.yahoo.com> > to the US (and 30+ countries) for 2¢/min or less.
-- /BP 8^)> -- Benct Philip Jonsson -- melroch at melroch dot se "Maybe" is a strange word. When mum or dad says it it means "yes", but when my big brothers say it it means "no"! (Philip Jonsson jr, age 7)