Re: CHAT: Historical linguistics, and soundlaws

Nik Taylor <fortytwo@...> wrote:

> Approximatization?: I'm not sure if this is a real term, but fricatives
> sometimes become approximates.  Most common is rhoticization, wherein
> /z/ becomes /r/.  So that, for instance, pre-OE *waese became waere
> (modern were).
PIE (or Italic, or whatever) /s/ became /z/ and then /r/ in Latin
also. But I don't know what Latin <r> was. Was it an approximant,
a flap, or a trill? How did Spanish end up with both sounds?
I know a lot of Spanish words have the trilled <rr> in borrowings
from Euzkadi (Basque), but that can't be the only source. Anybody
knows?


--Pablo Flores

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