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Palatization and Lenition etc

From:Chris Bates <chris.maths_student@...>
Date:Friday, October 22, 2004, 16:16
I've been thinking.... In basque t, d, l, n after i generally become
palatized (although usually they're still written the same). If another
language did something similar to this, it seems to me you could get a
"softening" after certain prepositions similar to lenition if the change
could occur across word boundaries.
 Example. Say I have a preposition "i" meaning... "to", "from", it
doesn't really matter. Then

i + tod -> i tyod
etc

I think this is how lenition started in welsh, as simple phonological
conditioning that later became grammatical as well (thanks to words
vanishing or being eroded maybe? I'd be interested to know the rule
about adjectives following feminine nouns undergoing lenition came
about). I don't see why a similar thing couldn't happen with
palatization like this over time, but as far as I know no celtic
language does this. Do you think its realistic?

Reply

Joe <joe@...>