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Re: mutation and rinya

From:Nik Taylor <fortytwo@...>
Date:Friday, August 6, 1999, 23:31
Daniel Andreasson wrote:
> What exactly is the difference between lenition, soft mutation, > nasal mutation (the Pinocchio syndrome :) and any other sort > of mutation?
Well, lenition is a "weakening" of the segment, usually something like stop --> fricative --> approximate (I think), so that t --> s would be lenition. I think that it also may include voicing, so that t --> d would also fall in that. I think that soft mutation is just another name for lenition. Nasal mutation is mutation that's caused by a nasal consonant (altho the consonant may be gone now). For instance ...m p... becoming ...m b..., or ...m b... becoming ...m m...
> I'm feeling somewhat confused here. Someone feel like helping > me out, please?
Well, here's an example from Irish (phonemic, not orthographic): Normal Lenition Eclipsed p f b t h d k x g b v m d G n g G N f [silent] v m v s h But, I don't know what the origins were of these mutations.
> Because then uni starts and taking both > Linguistics 102 and The history of the nordic languages 101
Hmm, I see your conlang taking a decidedly Nordic direction. :-) -- "[H]e axed after eggys: And the goode wyf answerde, that she coude not speke no Frenshe ... And then at last a nother sayd that he woulde haue hadde eyren: then the goode wyf sayd that she vnderstood hym wel." -- William Caxton http://members.tripod.com/~Nik_Taylor/X-Files http://members.tripod.com/~Nik_Taylor/Books.html ICQ: 18656696 AIM Screen-Name: NikTailor