Re: initial mutation or trigger? Re: re Mutations initial (in Welsh,

David Crystal, "A Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics":

"mutation - a term used in linguistics, especially historical
linguistics, to refer to the change in a sound's quality owing to the
influence of sounds in adjacent morphemes or words.  For example, in
the period when Old English was developing the influence of an /i/
vowel in certain circumstances caused other vowels to 'mutate' in the
direction of the close vowel, e.g, *foti became feet.  The term is
also occasionally used in synchronic contexts, as in the mutation of
various initial consonants in Welsh after certain words, e.g.,
pen 'head -> fy mhen 'my head.'"

Me: This "Welsh" type of mutation is called lenition, the change of a
strong sound to a weaker sound.  It is found in Senyecan to avoid
unpleasant consonant clusters, e.g., ápa (father) + váárun
(brother)
= afváárun (uncle) to avoid the forbidden stop + fricative (pv).

Charlie

--- In conlang@yahoogroups.com, "Mark J. Reed" <markjreed@M...> wrote:
On Thu, Oct 14, 2004 at 11:12:44AM +0200, Rodlox wrote:
> > becomes:  pryn + odd   (3rd singular past tense)
> >
> > Then in certain contexts, the "p" mutates to "b".
> > Since the "p" is at the beginning of the word, it is
> > called "initial consonant mutation".
>
>  ah...though, maybe it's just my foggy mind...(dang cold)...but
that sounds
> like a trigger language, as I understand it.
>
>  is a "mutation" when it's attached to a word  (ie, prynodd), and a
> "trigger" when it isn't attached?
Rodlox: now I'm confused.  What are you talking about?

As I read it, "initial consonant mutation" isn't any kind of technical
linguistics terminology; it's just plain English.  The initial
consonant
(e.g. /p/) undergoes a mutation (to /b/), therefore it's called
initial
consonant mutation.  I suppose could have been called "first consonant
change", but I can't think of any way to make it plainer than that.
What the heck does a phonetic change like that have to do with
triggers?

-Marcos
--- End forwarded message ---

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