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

On Thursday, October 14, 2004, at 04:30 , Joe wrote:

> Actually, Welsh has three types of mutation - soft, aspirate, and
> nasal.
It does indeed! And its sister languages, Cornish & Breton, have four:
soft, spirant, hard (fortition), mixed.

> The only one that is normally called lenition is the first.
That is certainly the only one that should be called 'lenition' - but
lenition is more commonly applied to the soft mutation of Irish & Scots
Gaelic which works rather differently from that of the Brittonic languages.
  Irish also has nasal mutation, but none of the other mutations of the
Brittonic langs. Scots Gaelic shows only soft mutation in its written form,
  but some form of nasal mutation does occur in some Scots Gaelic dialects.
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On Thursday, October 14, 2004, at 04:40 , Rodlox wrote:

>>> On Thu, Oct 14, 2004 at 11:12:44AM +0200, Rodlox wrote:
>>> becomes:  pryn + odd   (3rd singular past tense)
[snip]

>>>  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?
Yes - what does "it" refer to?

[snip]
>> What the heck does a phonetic change like that have to do with triggers?
>
>  it sounds like the explanation I got (way earlier) regarding
> triggers...only it's attached to a word.
>
>  my apologies for confusing you.
Apologies accepted - but you've still left some us mightily confused. If
we are confused, the chances are that you are also.

I cannot help thinking it would help us all, especially yourself, if made
you made it plainer what you understand by "trigger" and why the mutation
of initial consonants in a language like Welsh seem to suggest triggers. I
am not being critical in saying this, I am trying to be positive and
helpful


Ray
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ray.brown@freeuk.com
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Anything is possible in the fabulous Celtic twilight,
which is not so much a twilight of the gods
as of the reason."      [JRRT, "English and Welsh" ]

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