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

        First of all, Christophe, I didn't get your reply. I only knew about it
because of bnathyuw's reply. Oddly enough, I got your subsequent replies, os
I suspect my mail server is blitzing out again. Fortunately, there's Yahoo,
so this is going to be copy/paste. Sorry for messing up the thread.
        To clear up some misunderstanding: /f/ and /v/ in Proto-Enamyn ought to be
/p\/ and /B/. I changed my mind halfway through, but forgot to change the
initial explanation.
---CG---
Well, Sanskrit is as orderly as this, and nobody ever said it was the product
of an academician in an ivory tower. I think the consonant system is quite
plausible (the absence of /r/ may not be that much of a problem, since /l/ is
there. At worst, you could say that it's an allophone of /l/ in certain
positions)
---
        Ok, that's good to know. /4/ could be in allophonic variation with /l/ in
Proto-Enamyn, and once /G/ -> /R/ -> /R\/, the two could merge into /r/.

---CG---
> m -> p\ ?
> n -> s ?
> J -> C ?
> N -> x ?
Now that's strange. The denasalisation is not a problem, but the devoicing is,
since it kind of implies hardening. Doesn't fit well with lenition. If you
want Proto-Enamyn to have regular mutations, I'd say:
m -> B
n -> z
J -> j\
N -> G
would be a bit more plausible. Nothing prevents you afterwards to devoice them
(to explain why those would be devoiced and not other occurences of the voiced
fricatives, you could hypothesize that they were actually not exactly
fricatives but affricates bB, dz, J\j\ and gG, which got devoiced because of
the absence of their voiceless counterpart, and then were fricativised. So
actually your original mutation would be:
m -> bB
n -> dz
J -> J\j\
N -> gG.
This change still would fit my idea of lenition, since affricates are not as
hard as stops and nasals are nasal *stops*. What do you think of this idea?).
---
        Yes, I like it. After I posted the message last night (it was late, so that's
my excuse for some stupid spelling mistakes later on), I realized that the
nasals would not devoice. Your idea for the "original" mutation works--as the
mutation system becomes increasingly grammaticalized, the stops would drop
out, leaving just /B z j\ G/.

---CG---
> p\ -> B
> B -> m
> s -> z
> z -> n
> C -> j\
> j\ -> J
> x -> G
> G -> N
I have nothing against voicing voiceless fricatives, it goes well with the
idea of lenition. But nasalising the voiced fricatives doesn't fit well the
system, unless the trigger for lenition was a previous nasal (but then why
would the nasals lose their nasalisation?). On the other hand, simply losing
the voiced fricatives would be possible. Or you could introduce approximants:
B -> w
z -> r\ (or h\ - yes, the voiced glottal fricative :)) -)
j\ -> j
G -> M\ (or G -> 0 would be nice too, it's nice to have at least one consonant
completely disappearing through mutation :))) )
which would still keep your system orderly, or add a very small bit of
disorder by adopting the z -> h\ and G -> 0 changes. Of course, you'd need to
define what those approximants become when mutated too. If we accept the idea
of lenition, then they would simply disappear entirely (or wouldn't be
influenced at all).
---
        Ah-ha! This is why I value peer review: creative alternatives! I hadn't
considered approximants. To avoid having to discover how the approximants
mutate, is it reasonable to say that they only occur within the mutation
system? (So I guess that they would be considered allophones of the voiced
fricatives.) That way, once the mutation system has been grammaticalized, the
approximants can change thusly:
w -> ua -> Ma -> a
r\ -> l
/j/ would stay, because it is found in Enamyn, and I like G -> 0 for the same
reason you do. :)
        That way, after all the sound changes occur, Enamyn would have some of the
following changes in its first mutation:
v -> a
ts -> l
k (in some instances) -> j
r -> 0
        Oh, I like that! :)

---CG---
> K -> l
> l -> ?
>
If we keep the idea of lenition, l would probably behave like those
approximants I introduced above. So if you decide that they disappear, you'd
have l -> 0 too. But if you decide that they just stay the way they are, then
you'd have l -> l too. One point in mutations is that the resulting system
doesn't need to be unambiguous. On the contrary, look at the different
mutation
systems of Celtic languages. There are usually losses of oppositions due to
mutations (like Irish /d/ and /g/ aspirate to the same /G/-/j/, and /s/ and
/t/
aspirate both to /h/). You could do the same. No need for your mutation system
to keep things unambiguous. Or what's the fun of it then? ;))))
---
        Well, I wanted to at least _start_ with an unambiguous system, so that I
could then mess it up. :) I'm willing to go back to Proto-Proto-Enamyn if I
have to; I just want some sort of foundation to work off of. I'll have to
think about the various merits of l -> 0 vs. l -> l. I guess I am leaning
toward l -> 0, but I'll have to see how it plays out...

---CG---
> System 2:
>
> p_h -> b
> p -> p\
> b -> p
> t_h -> d
> t -> s
> d -> t
> c_h -> J\
> c -> C
> J\ -> c
> k_h -> g
> k -> x
> g -> k
Strange system. It look a bit like an "inversion", with aspirates becoming
voiced and voiced becoming unvoiced, unvoiced fricativising for some reason.

> m -> B
Not m -> b to compare with other nasals?
---
        Oops, silly typo, that should be m -> b. And yes, it's a very strange system,
one that I can't explain besides waving a magic wand over it. The aspirates
becoming voiced isn't too difficult to imagine, nor the unvoiced
fricativizing, but the voiced becoming unvoiced is a bit of a stretch. As I
think about it, maybe I should have the voiced stops become nasals. But then
this means that we have a system in which m -> b and b -> m under the same
phonological conditions!

---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 :))) .
---
        Or something. Does anyone know what conditions would lead to hardening?
There's got to be some process that could be responsible. :)

---CG---
As for the approximants I introduced earlier, if you decide to keep them, I'd
follow the example of l and mutate them into voiceless fricatives. So:
w -> p\
r\ -> s (or h\ -> s if you take this one. It looks a bit strange, but would be
natural if speakers connect h\ and s together, what they would certainly do
with the s -> h\ change)
j -> C
M\ -> x (if you take this approximant).

Of course, all this is just a starting point. You can always modify it a bit
so that you don't have to introduce new phonemes like the approximants I gave
you. But if you want Proto-Enamyn to have really regular mutations, it's a
good start I think.
---
        An interesting idea. Maybe adding approximants wouldn't be such a bad idea
after all. But it would be a little easier if they just occured only in
mutations.

---CG---
> The academician has not yet theorized on what triggered the mutations,
> mind
> you...
I thought so ;))) . With the little advice I gave you, the answer for system 1
is easy: plain ol' lenition. For system 2 it's a bit stranger, and I wouldn't
be surprised if it was the result of the merge of two separate mutations in
Proto-Proto-Enamyn ;))) . It's quite possible, once the phonological
environment triggering the change has disappeared and the change is seen only
as grammatical.
---
        Ok, I was aiming for lenition with system 1. The idea of merging two previous
systems had not occured to me; what do you think would be the best
explanation? Say, for instance, a system that deals with stops and a system
that deals with fricatives merge? Or maybe a three-way merger, in which the
stops, nasals, and fricatives all come from different systems? That would
permit b -> m and m -> b, but what a nightmare! :)

---CG---

> Then, the palatal series is lost:
>
> c -> k_j -> kj (before a vowel); c-> k_j -> k (after a vowel)
> J\ -> g_j -> gj (before a vowel); J\ -> g_j -> g (after a vowel)
> J -> n_j -> nj (before a vowel); J -> n_j -> n (after a vowel)
> C -> S *new phoneme to the language
> j\ -> G
>
So C advanced but j\ retracted... Maybe some dissimilation or something was in
play here...
---
        That's the only likely explanation I can think of. It isn't very pretty,
though, as I said. Maybe I will make it j\ -> Z -> j. Would make for some
interesting changes, as well as for a lot of glides, since I already have g
-> j!

---CG---
> Finally, we have a couple of more random sound changes at various
> times:
>
> z -> ts
How did this happen? I could see a z -> dz -> ts chain, but I have
difficulties on having the fricative getting spontaneously a stop onset.
Generally the order goes stop -> affricate -> fricative. I don't remember
ever seen the opposite order...
---
        It happened because I was getting sleepy. :) It should be z -> dz -> ts.

---CG---
> p\ -> p
> B -> v
So you would get v without f?
---
        Another mistake. p\ -> f.
        Well, it looks as though the rest of the thread has already been discussed,
so I'll leave it hear. I'm relieved to hear that the chain for G -> r is
plausible. Tell me how system 2 (or its back history) can be improved.
        Thanks,
        :Peter

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