Insular Celtic mutations (was: Consonant harmony (and intro))

On Monday, July 18, 2005, at 07:10 , Elliott Lash wrote:
[snip]
>> Actually, Welsh doesn't have a hard mutation.  It
>> has a soft, an
>> aspirated, and a nasal mutation.  And I'm not sure
>> you could call it
>> consonant harmony, since it's grammatical, not
>> phonetic.
>
> it has some traces of "hard" mutation, in Adjectives
> Degrees
>
>           Equitive    Comparative   Superlative
> caredig > carediced   caredicach    caredica(f)
> tlawd   > tloted      tlotach       tlota(f)
> gwlyb   > gwlyped     gwlypach      gwlypa(f)
Yep - I was going to make the same point in my last reply, but decided not
to bother. As far as initial consonant mutations are concerned, Joe is
correct.

> And I think is some verbs in certain forms the same
> sort of thing happens (g > c, d > t, b > p)
Not so certain about that, but you may be right. The hard mutation affects
only /b/, /d/ and /g/ causing them to become voiceless. Although it is not
found as initial mutation in Welsh, it is found initially in its sister
languages Cornish & Breton, both of which BTW lack the nasal mutation of
Welsh.

But the consonant mutations of the Insular Celtic langs, interesting tho
they are, are not examples of consonant harmony.

Ray
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