Re: R: Re: Digest 2 Apr

Mangiat sikayal:

> > I don't know.  There's some pretty weird stuff out there, like s > r,
> > which is attested multiple times, but which I can't justify in my own
> > mind.
>
> That's rhotacism. It happened in Latin, for istance:
I know what it's called.  I just said that it makes little sense to me.

> honos 'honour' NOM.
>
> honos + em > honorem 'honour' ACC.
>
> /l/ > /r/ is another type of rothacism, attested inRumanian, i.e., and in
> the variety of Italian spoken in Rome:
>
> 'il lato' (the side) is realized as /er 'lado/
This looks like dissimilation to me, although it is rhotic.  Does this
occur when the next word begins with something other than another /l/?

Romanian rhotacism is entirely different; it results in a simple
intervocalic /l/ becoming /r/, as in Lat sol(em) > Rom soare.


Jesse S. Bangs jaspax@u.washington.edu

"If you look at a thing nine hundred and ninety-nine times, you are
perfectly safe; if you look at it the thousandth time, you are in
frightful danger of seeing it for the first time."
--G.K. Chesterton

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