Re: [PEER REVIEW] Mutations and sound changes (longish)

On Wednesday 30 October 2002 06:10 pm, Roger Mills wrote:
> Peter Clark wrote:
> >        Ok, let's try:
> >Nasal:
> >p_h -> b *
> >p -> b
> >b -> m *
> >t_h -> d *
> >t -> d
> >d -> n *
>
> et sim.    I'm jumping in at random, so may not be germane, and I suspect
> you understand that these changes must be ordered (if they're historical)--
>  1.  [vd.stops] > nasal
>  2. [vl. stops] > [voiced]   Otherwise, of course, ph/p/b etc. would all
> end up as /m/.
> OTOH if these are mutations, à la Celtic, it's probably OK, but what
> is(are) the conditioning environment(s)? I don't recall reading about that
> in previous posts..
        Yes, these are mutations, not sound changes. As for the conditioning
environments...well, this is Proto-Enamyn, with a historical depth of at
least 1,000 years, possibly more, before Enamyn (which in turn has a written
extant record from about 600 AD to 1000 AD). So, in other words, I'm waving a
magic wand and saying, "Mutations occured..." Of course, at one point, there
had to be (in this case) a final nasal on some word, but as time went by, the
grammatical function of said word was co-opted by the mutation itself, while
the poor word withered and died. This was probably during the time in which
Proto-Enamyn was moving from isolating to agglutinating morphology, with the
final loss of the word/morpheme occuring as the language moved to a more
fusional morphology.
        There is the possibility that Proto-Enamyn also had tones, but this way
madness lies... :)

> From a previous post:
> ---CG---
>
> > n -> d
> > J -> J\
> > N -> g
> > p\ -> p
> > B -> b
> > s -> t
> > z -> d
> > C -> c
> > j\ -> J\
> > x -> k
> > G -> g
>
> It's a kind of hardening then? IMHO it fits well with the behaviour of the
> stops, even if it would be difficult to explain it :))) .
> ---
> (PC)        Or something. Does anyone know what conditions would lead to
> hardening?
> There's got to be some process that could be responsible. :)>
>
> (Moi) Probably clustering of some sort; my choice would be juncture of like
> with like, with gemination, if that fits within your system:   n-n (>n: >
> nd) > d,  G-G (> G: > gG?) > g.  (In fact, something similar can happen in
> Kash compounds e.g. /...-tap - xo-.../ > / ...tako.../ though it's no
> longer a very productive rule).
        This is certainly a possibility. In system 1 mutations (lenition), we have:

m -> B
n -> z
J -> j\
N -> G

which were initially clusers:

m -> bB
n -> dz
J -> J\j\
N -> gG

that lost their initial obstruent. So this would be a nice explantion for why
the system 2 mutations show hardening. Thanks!

> In general I agree with Christophe (if I've read him aright), that the
> various systems don't have to be totally consistent; there could be sounds
> that are exempt, there could be systems that intersect and merge partly or
> wholly, analogy can go to work etc etc.
        As I was saying to Christophe, the only reason I wanted things regular and
consistent was for a stable foundation upon which to build my house of cards.
:) Hence, Proto-Enamyn's nice, regular mutations. Now that I think I have
that finished, I can extrapolate Enamyn's mutations, after mutations have
become grammaticalized (and no longer require a phonological condition to
trigger them) and some sound changes have occured. But I will save that for a
separate post, so as not to confuse the thread.
        :Peter