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Re: mutation and rinya

From:FFlores <fflores@...>
Date:Sunday, August 8, 1999, 3:06
Daniel Andreasson <noldo@...> wrote:

> Yes. That's exactly what I'm trying to get an answer to. What are the > underlying reasons for the mutations? > Where's Ray Brown at? He's usually brilliant at this kind of stuff.
I'm not Ray but maybe I can help. With examples: Sindarin has several mutation types. According to Ardalambion's survey of the language, the underlying plural definite article _in_ causes mutation of the following word. *in bair > i mbair *in dengin > i ndengin *in giliath > i ngiliath The *asterisked forms must have occurred earlier in the language, but now the article just causes nasal mutation on voiced stops. *in tiw > i thiw *in cirth > i chirth *in periannath > i pheriannath Here there's a 'spirant mutation' (unvoiced stop to fricative). The reason for this is that /in tiw/ becomes /it'tiw/ by assimilation, and the same for the others: /n/ + unvoiced stop > geminated stop. Then the geminated stop, by a common change rule, becomes a fricative (maybe the process is geminated > aspirated > affricate > fricative?). I assume the mutations in Celtic languages, which were the inspiration for Sindarin, follow similar patterns. What I would like to know is *what* exactly these patterns were, how much time ago, etc. :) --Pablo Flores