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Re: THEORY: derivation question

From:Nik Taylor <fortytwo@...>
Date:Thursday, March 25, 1999, 2:54
Tom Wier wrote:
> * (Incidentally, there was no particular reason why the protolanguage had > to be reconstructed with an original *p; it could have had an *f, but then > you would have to say all the other languages changed with the very same > rule, from *f to *p, rather than just Germanic changing from *p to *f, and > it's much easier to say one family made the change than all of them > did. There could have been this other change, but it'smuch less likely.)
Not to mention that /f/ --> /p/ is a much less probable change than /p/ --> /f/. Sounds frequently become less obstructed, that is stops tend to become affricates (stop+fricative series, like /tS/, English ch), affricates to fricatives, fricatives to approximates (frictionless sounds like /w/). There are counterexamples, but overall, if two languages are related, and one has /p/, and the other /f/, */p/ is the more probable ancestor. -- "It's bad manners to talk about ropes in the house of a man whose father was hanged." - Irish proverb http://members.tripod.com/~Nik_Taylor/X-Files http://members.tripod.com/~Nik_Taylor/Books.html ICQ: 18656696 AIM Screen-name: NikTailor