[Histling-l] excrescence by regular rule?

Thu Sep 14 05:00:40 EDT 2017

Alex François has rightly quote the OGr. ex.
ἀνήρ /anēr/ 'man',
genitive ἀνδρός /andr-os/ < *anr-os
Note that along with  Nom.Pl. àndres we have also ané:res (and also Gen.Sg. 
anéros, Dat.Sg. anéri, 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. ἀνήρ /anēr/).

Paolo

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Università di Pavia (retired)
Istituto Universitario di Studi Superiori (IUSS Pavia, retired)
Societas Linguist. Europ., Honorary Member

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-----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
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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)lāre    ‘seem’
ensemble < *in-sim(u)l        ‘together’

trembler < *trem(u)lāre        ‘shiver’
combler < *cum(u)lāre          ‘fill up’

chambre < *cam(e)ra          ‘room’
nombre < *num(e)rum        ‘number’
Eng. remember < O.Fr. remembrer < Late Lat. *re-mem(o)rāre

cendre < *cin(e)rem        ‘ashes’

tendre < *ten(e)rum      ‘tender,  soft’
pondre < *pōn(e)re       ‘lay  (egg)’
coudre < *cōs(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
ἀνήρ /anēr/ 'man',
genitive ἀνδρός /andr-os/ < *anr-os

Μεσημβρία /mes-ēmbria/ 'mid-day, South' < *mes-ēmr-ia
(cf. ἡμέρα *hēméra 'day')

ἄμβροτος /ambrotos/ 'immortal' < *a-mro-to-s < *n̻-mr̻-t-o-s  [cf. Skr अमृत 
amṛta]
(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 /ⁿr/
a bilabial trill /ᵐʙ/

Quite expectedly, the phonetic realisation of these two phonemes is 
respectively [ndr] and [mbʙ].  Try them at home:  I find it difficult  to 
pronounce sequences /nr/ and /mʙ/ without inserting these transitional 
sounds.   :-)

best
Alex

 _________
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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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