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The Daltaķ Boards » Archive: 2005- » 2005 (September-October) » Archive through October 03, 2005 » The origin of lenition and eclipsis « Previous Next »

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Robert
Unregistered guest
Posted From:
Posted on Wednesday, September 28, 2005 - 09:04 am:   Edit Post Print Post

I was wondering on what were the phonological conditions that led to eclipsis and lention, and in what contexts?

Would I be right in saying that plosives were most succeptable and then the process got generalised to most consonants in time?

UnvoicedVoicedNasalised
Basic/p/ /t/ /k//b/ /d/ /g//m/ /n/ /n/
Lenition/f/ /θ/ /x//w/ /δ/ /γ//w/ /n/ /n/

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Lughaidh
Member
Username: Lughaidh

Post Number: 816
Registered: 01-2005
Posted on Wednesday, September 28, 2005 - 02:07 pm:   Edit Post Print Post

At the beginning (5th century AD, so before Old Irish), lenition happened on a consonant when it was between two vowels:

*sindos wiros bekkos > OI in fer bec > MI an fear beag
*sindā benā bekkā > OI ind bhen bhec > MI an bhean bheag


Eclipsis happened on a consonant when it was preceded by a word ending on -n, at the same period:

*qennos sindān wiron bekkon > OI cend inna (b)fer mbec > MI ceann na bhfear (m)beag

*sektan qrannos > OI secht gcrand > MI seacht gcrann


In Old Irish there was a third type of initial mutation, called gemination. It doesn't exist anymore in Modern Irish, but there's a remaining of it: the h- prefixed to vowels: na hślla, etc. That h- occurs when there would have been a gemination in Old Irish.

Maybe there are some little mistakes in my reconstructions above: Dennis, correct me if I am wrong ;-)



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