Stephen Mulraney wrote:
Replying to myself to correct some hideous editing oversights
(including one that made a sentence meaningless - otherwise I'd
just let it pass!)
> I think 'aspiration' used to mean 'fricativisation' was a
> widespead and rather old-fashioned sin, and wasn't confined
> to Celtic studies.
>
> In modern Irish (and in Scots Gaelic) orthography, a |h| in
> spelling after another consonant letter indicates what's
> natively called 'seimhiú' (using the Irish term anyway). The
> best English-language name I know for it is 'lenition', since
> it originally arose from the becoming-lenis (a vague word for
> 'weak') of consonants between vowels, and between a vowel and
> an approximant.
>
> In anycase, it's broader than a change from stop to fricative:
> depending on dialect, the result can been an approximant too.
*can be*
> In the case of |mh|, it's (depending on dialect) and quality
depending on dialect and quality
> ('narrow' or 'broad' - roughly palatalised or not) either [w] or
( ...............................................) it's either ...
> [v] (or perhaps better [B], I'm not sure). I *think* that in
> all dialects the graph |mh| is always the same as the graph |mh|
all dialects the graph |mh| is always the same as the graph |bh|
(!!)
> (in phonetic realisation I mean :)). I'm not sure though.
Appy polly loggies.
s.
> --
> To be sure Stephen Mulraney
> to be sure ataltane@ataltane.net
>
>