Jesse Bangs wrote:
> What's weird is that [l] patterns with the obstruents, adding to the list
> of things about [l] that's funny in OY. I'm still puzzling over that one.
Interesting. What are the other funny things about [l]?
And I mean apart from probably being derived from a stop. What are
the consequences of that?
And a comment on John Cowan's Latin -> Sardinian example. Swedish
had the opposite development in some words.
'hårde' [ho:d`E] --> [ho:l`E] --> 'håle' [ho:lE]
which should support the Old Yivrian development.
And Nik Taylor wrote:
> I'd analyze that grouping of [l] as proof that [l] is descended from
> something else. It's in the same group as nasals, so one possibility is
> that [l] is derived from [n]. Yoruba, for example, uses [n] and [l] as
> allophones.
Yes, [n] and [l] are very similar. It's almost impossible to tell
them apart on a spectrogram for instance. And I can't tell you
how many times I've misheard _juni_ 'June' and _juli_ 'July'! :)
Daniel Andreasson