Re: p <-> kw

Quoting Robert B Wilson <han_solo55@...>:

> On Mon, 16 Dec 2002 16:41:58 -0800 Josh Brandt-Young <vionau@...>
> writes:
> > You may already know this, but lip-rounding has the effect of
> > lowering the formant frequencies of the stop burst, which means that
> > the difference between, say, [p] and [k_w] is next to nothing,
> > acoustically. I don't know of any living languages that do this
> > (except, apparently, English, given your example), but PIE did: we
> > have PIE "gwo:us" showing up as Latin "bo:s" vs. English "cow," and
> > the same distribution holds for the voiceless and
> > breathy-voiced stops as well.
>
> how do we know it wasn't "bo:us" in PIE?
By comparison with other IE languages that changed differently
from Greek and Latin.

> if a b > gw change is possible,
> then it is almost impossible to tell which consonant was present in PIE.
What Josh meant here by "possible" is linguists' shorthand for
"both in principle possible and in fact attested".  While [b]
and [g_w] may be acoustically similar, in fact a change [b] -->
[g_w] is to my knowledge so rare as to be almost unattested.
This should not be surprising, since [b] is a simplex segment,
while [g_w] is complex, having a secondary articulation.
Since segments with secondary articulations are known to tend
cross-linguistically to eliminate one of the two features (i.e.,
--> [g] or [w]) or merge them ([b]), we would expect in either
case a less marked outcome.

> > Where have you observed this in English? Is there any chance of
> > recording
> > it?
>
> well, i can give the sentence in which i first noticed it:
> "i'll be back in a few minutes."
Can you rule out temporary lapses in articulation? The goal of a
phonologist is not to account for every actual articulation, but
only those that are psychologically salient for the speaker/hearer.
If this person does not repeat it, then it may be safely ignored.

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