Re: mutation and rinya

On Fri, 6 Aug 1999, Daniel Andreasson wrote:

> (i)   in deloth > in deloth
> (ii)  in bacor > im bacor
> (iii) in cwol > ing gwol
>
Brithenig shamelessly stole the nasal mutation from Welsh, if I were to
spell your example in Brithenig it would end up as:

(i)     in deloth > in neloth /I nE 'loT/
(ii)    in bacor > in macor /I m@ 'cor/
(iii)   in cwol > in nghwol /i 'Nhwol/

(iii) has a very nasty cluster.  Unvoiced stops turn into unvoiced nasals
written as Nh, where N may be {m, n, ng} unless they are pronounced as
aspirated nasals, which I suspect is unlikely.

> in > im is ordinary assimilation, but what happens in (iii) /k/ > /g/?
> What exactly is the difference between lenition, soft mutation,
> nasal mutation (the Pinocchio syndrome :) and any other sort
> of mutation?
>
I think between everyone else that question has been covered thoroughly so
I won't add any more.

> Nasal mutation seems to have something to do with a final
> -n (and other nasals) and its influence on the following consonant.
Yes.

- andrew.
--
Andrew Smith, Intheologus                       hobbit@earthlight.co.nz