[Histling-l] histling-l Digest, Vol 5, Issue 6

HENNING ANDERSEN andersen at ucla.edu
Thu Sep 14 12:57:09 EDT 2017


On epenthetic consonants:

An old source, actually a classic, with plenty of examples from diverse
languages is

Maurice Grammont. [1933] 1965. Traité de phonétique. Paris: Librairie
Delagrave.

Henning Andersen

On Thu, Sep 14, 2017 at 9:05 AM, <histling-l-request at mailman.yale.edu>
wrote:

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>    1. Re: excrescence by regular rule? (Paolo Ramat)
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Thu, 14 Sep 2017 11:00:40 +0200
> From: "Paolo Ramat" <paoram at unipv.it>
> Subject: Re: [Histling-l] excrescence by regular rule?
> To: "Geoffrey Nathan" <geoffnathan at wayne.edu>,  "Alex Francois"
>         <alex.francois.cnrs at gmail.com>, "Martha Ratliff" <ac6000 at wayne.edu
> >
> Cc: histling-l at mailman.yale.edu
> Message-ID: <CDAF35ED6DAD43C08A7EB0CAE1906F49 at PaoloPC>
> Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="UTF-8";
>         reply-type=original
>
> Alex Fran?ois has rightly quote the OGr. ex.
> ???? /an?r/ 'man',
> genitive ?????? /andr-os/ < *anr-os
> Note that along with  Nom.Pl. ?ndres we have also an?:res (and also Gen.Sg.
> an?ros, Dat.Sg. an?ri, etc. ). This proves that the phonetic rule of
> consonant insertion may be overruled by a paradigm regularization rule
> (in this case on the basis of Nom. Sg. ???? /an?r/).
>
> Paolo
>
> Prof.Paolo Ramat
> Universit? di Pavia (retired)
> Istituto Universitario di Studi Superiori (IUSS Pavia, retired)
> Societas Linguist. Europ., Honorary Member
>
> Piazzetta Arduino 11
> I ? 27100 Pavia
> ##39 347 044 98 44 (port.)
> ##39 0382 27 0 27 (home)
>
> -----Messaggio originale-----
> From: Geoffrey Nathan
> Sent: Thursday, September 14, 2017 4:31 AM
> To: Alex Francois ; Martha Ratliff
> Cc: histling-l at mailman.yale.edu
> Subject: Re: [Histling-l] excrescence by regular rule?
>
> Just to pile on here, there are numerous cases in English as well, although
> I don't know whether these epenthetic stops are 'regular' or just frequent.
> But we have inserted 'b's in:
>
> crumble, bumble, bramble, fumble, jumble, tumble, mumble and nimble
> (source:
> World Wide Words)
>
> and probably more.
>
> And, of course, there are the epenthetic voiceless stops in 'Hampstead,
> hamster, spinster, Springsteen...'. These are non-systematic in that some
> of
> them are orthographic, (Hampstead), some are regular but not spelled (I
> don't think anyone says 'hamster' without a /p/ ), but some are probably
> variable ('Chomsky', for example). T
>
> here's a small phonological literature on how and whether the fleeting [p]
> is phonologized or not (I think Bruce Hayes wrote on this but it's too late
> at night to look it up).
>
>
> Geoff
>
>
>
>
> Geoffrey S. Nathan
> WSU Information Privacy Officer (Retired)
> Emeritus Professor, Linguistics Program
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> geoffnathan at wayne.edu
>
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>
>
>
>
> From: histling-l-bounces at mailman.yale.edu
> <histling-l-bounces at mailman.yale.edu> on behalf of Alex Francois
> <alex.francois.cnrs at gmail.com>
> Sent: Wednesday, September 13, 2017 6:08 PM
> To: Martha Ratliff
> Cc: histling-l at mailman.yale.edu
> Subject: Re: [Histling-l] excrescence by regular rule?
>
>
>
>
> ??dear Martha, dear all,
>
>
> > I had always thought of excrescence as a sound change that operates on
> > individual words in an unpredictable fashion
> I think such processes of epenthesis are often quite  regular, and easily
> explained.
> In the examples you cite, consonant epenthesis (I haven't heard the term
> "excrescence") result from a simple rule whereby a nasal consonant is
> denasalised when it comes  in contact with a non-nasal consonant, e.g. *mr
> >
> *mbr;  *nr > *ndr...
>
>
> Such processes are very regular indeed in Indo-European.  Old French has
> inherited many forms from Latin which underwent a syncope, resulting in
> consonant epenthesis  between the consonants now in contact.  Here are a
> few
> examples:
>
>
> Fr. sembler < Lat. *sim(i)l?re    ?seem?
> ensemble < *in-sim(u)l        ?together?
>
> trembler < *trem(u)l?re        ?shiver?
> combler < *cum(u)l?re          ?fill up?
>
>
> chambre < *cam(e)ra          ?room?
> nombre < *num(e)rum        ?number?
> Eng. remember < O.Fr. remembrer < Late Lat. *re-mem(o)r?re
>
>
>
> cendre < *cin(e)rem        ?ashes?
>
> tendre < *ten(e)rum      ?tender,  soft?
> pondre < *p?n(e)re       ?lay  (egg)?
> coudre < *c?s(e)re < consuere       ?sew?
> moudre < mol(e)re        ?grind?
> poudre < *polre < *pulvere    ?dust,  powder?
>
>
>
>
>
> (?NB:  after I wrote this, I just realised Matthieu's post, who also cites
> some examples of Romance.)
>
>
>
>
>
> See also Greek
> ???? /an?r/ 'man',
> genitive ?????? /andr-os/ < *anr-os
>
> ????????? /mes-?mbria/ 'mid-day, South' < *mes-?mr-ia
> (cf. ????? *h?m?ra 'day')
>
> ???????? /ambrotos/ 'immortal' < *a-mro-to-s < *n?-mr?-t-o-s  [cf. Skr ????
> am?ta]
> (hence Eng. ambrosia)
>
>
> ______
> Finally, the phenomenon is also known in the Oceanic languages of Vanuatu
> where I work.  In Malakula (an island with 42  different languages!) it is
> common to find languages whose phoneme inventories include two prenasalised
> trills. Phonologically, these are:
> an alveolar trill /?r/
> a bilabial trill /??/
>
>
> Quite expectedly, the phonetic realisation of these two phonemes is
> respectively [ndr] and [mb?].  Try them at home:  I find it difficult  to
> pronounce sequences /nr/ and /m?/ without inserting these transitional
> sounds.   :-)
>
>
> best
> Alex
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> ? _________
> Alex Fran?ois
>
> https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__alex.
> francois.free.fr_img_Logo-2DLACITO-5Fs.png&d=DwIGaQ&c=
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> eHmq9u2SqA92kcPN6YfMLB5bnOWabEuV11hsUaXLvpA&s=dB6Ms-
> NJkaUjIGC5fl98fmU9FMy4Lm9y_INpkR49tOQ&e=
> Directeur, LACITO-CNRS,  France
> Australian  National University, Canberra
> Academia  page ? Personal  homepage
> Les  Carnets du LaCiTO
> ?Prochainement  au LaCiTOOn 13 September 2017 at 20:46, Martha Ratliff  <
> ac6000 at wayne.edu> wrote:
>
> Does anyone know of a reconstruction in which someone has posited a regular
> change involving insertion of a consonant between two other consonants?  I
> had always thought of excrescence as a sound change that operates on
> individual words  in an unpredictable fashion (that is, the low-level
> transitional consonant is phonologized unpredictably), but am wondering if
> there are cases where someone believes it to have operated in a regular,
> rule-governed fashion to an entire set of words.
> I am especially interested in insertions of the ?thimble?/?hombre? type,
> but
> would be interested in examples of the ?Hampshire? type as well.
> Many thanks in advance!
>
> Martha Ratliff
>
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> End of histling-l Digest, Vol 5, Issue 6
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