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

On Wednesday 30 October 2002 01:56 pm, Christophe Grandsire wrote:
> En réponse à Peter Clark <peter-clark@...>:
> >         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.)
>
> Yes indeed. But I thought mutations happened between *phonemes*. Of course,
> you can consider that the approximants disappeared by the time the system
> became grammaticalised, and thus really earning the name "mutation".
        Well, I've thought a little more about it and decided that Proto-Enamyn did
have approximants after all. (They were just hiding in the corner.) This
simplifies matters somewhat without adding too much work. All I need to do is
figure out how lenition would affect /w r\ j/, if at all. Suggestions?

> I'd say that at the time the two systems were fully grammaticalised, it
> happened that they were identical for many consonants, and just different
> for a few of them. If they happened for similar grammatical reasons (with
> as only difference maybe the gender of the noun or something like that),
> the difference could have been levelled out by the speakers. I stay rather
> imprecise because I don't know the specifics of those mutations. Let's say
> that one of the mutation was nasalisation, while the second could be called
> hardening. If they were identical for a lot of consonants except a few,
> they could have merged.
        Ok, let's try:
Nasal:
p_h -> b *
p -> b
b -> m *
t_h -> d *
t -> d
d -> n *
c_h -> J\ *
c -> J\
J\ -> J *
k_h -> g *
k -> g
g -> N *
m -> m *
n -> n *
J -> J *
N -> N *
p\ -> p
B -> b
s -> t
z -> d
C -> c
j\ -> J\
x -> k
G -> g
K -> K
l -> K
w -> p\
r\ -> s
j -> C

Aspiration / Hardening:
p_h -> p\ *
p -> b
b -> b *
t_h -> s *
t -> d
d -> d *
c_h ->  C *
c -> J\
J\ -> J\ *
k_h -> x *
k -> g
g -> g *
m -> b *
n -> d *
J -> J\ *
N -> g *
p\ -> p
B -> b
s -> t
z -> d
C -> c
j\ -> J\
x -> k
G -> g
K -> K
l -> K
w -> p\
r\ -> r\
j -> C
(*) marks the differences.
        Nasalizing turned voiced unvoiced stops, nasalized voiced stops, and turned
fricatives into stops.
        For Aspiration/Hardening, whatever triggered the change turned aspirated
stops into fricatives, while voicing unaspirated stops, denasalizing nasals,
and hardening fricatives. Might this require a previous merger of another two
systems? Gah...
        Anyways, out of the resulting mess, we have system 2:
p_h -> p\
p -> b
b -> m
t_h -> s
t -> d
d -> n
c_h -> J\
c -> J\
J\ -> J
k_h -> g
k -> g
g -> N
m -> b
n -> d
J -> J
N -> N
p\ -> p
B -> b
s -> t
z -> d
C -> c
j\ -> J\
x -> k
G -> g
K -> K
l -> K
w -> p\
r\ -> r\
j -> C
        Where the back stops and nasals follow nasalization, while the front stops
and nasals follow hardening. What say ye?

> >         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!
>
> Nothing's wrong with glides :)) . How knows, maybe you could even make them
> evolve into palatalisation! :))
        Actually, palatization is lost just before "modern" Enamyn--see my first
post.

> >         It happened because I was getting sleepy. :) It should be z ->
> > dz -> ts.
>
> Still, were did this d appear? "hardening" is rare without a reason...
        I thought I remembered seeing this before...hmm...I will need to think about
this some. I've also got to explain the presence of /tS/ as well...
        :Peter

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