23
Not always.
Grimm's Law predicts that Proto-Indo-European *b would turn into Proto-Germanic *p. However, Proto-Indo-European *b is vanishingly rare, and some scholars argue it didn't actually exist in the oldest reconstructable forms of the language (only appearing later). Regardless, though, an ancestral *b is probably the source of a few native Germanic ...
16
Word final consonants in French are pronounced, but only under certain conditions that has to do with group- or phrase phonology; they are usually not pronounced at the end of a phrase or a word uttered in isolation.
Descriptions of late 17th century French suggest a stage where most consonants were (still) pronounced, but some were elided mainly before ...
14
No, because PIE *p does not always become f. It does not in the cluster sp, for example "spin" < *spen, "sprawl" < *sper. Germanic p regularly derives from b, e.g. "deep" < *\dheub. Germanic *swompuz "swamp; fungus" is attested in all branches of Germanic as well as Greek σομφός: the reconstruction *su̯omb(h)...
11
It is almost true, in the sense that there are nearly no cases of ejectives unambiguously developing and clearly without external influence. There are two good candidates, though: Yapese and Waimoa. Ethiopian Semitic development of ejectives can be attributed to contact with Cushitic, and Nguni ejectives to contact with Khoisan. However, it is also possible ...
10
This is a common sound change. [h] has no constriction above the larynx, and involves spreading the glottis so that any noise generated is turbulence as the air flows through the glottis. Most of the hearable stuff of [h] is the low-level effect on surrounding sonorants. (On top of that, h might end up partially voiced). In producing [s] especially (other ...
10
There certainly is.
For example, final -y in English often comes from an older -ig (and there is often a current German cognate that ends in -ig)
It's a widespread phenomenon, one form of palatalization.
I'm not aware of any instances of the reverse change, but I hesitate to say any sound change isn't "possible"
10
Some of these words were re-loaned from Classical Latin after the change of Old Spanish /f/ to /h/ had stopped: compare loaned forma "shape" against inherited horma "mold" (as you mentioned in the question), loaned fácil "easy" against inherited hacer "do", loaned fatal "fatal" against inherited hado "...
9
These words are not considered to be related.
πίστις ‘faith, trust’ and the verb πείθομαι ‘to trust, obey, be persuaded’ come from Indo-European *bhidh-, related to Latin fides, with *bh- > *ph- > p according to Grassmann’s law.
ἐλπίς ‘hope’, ἐλπίζω, ἔλπομαι ‘to hope’, is from Indo-European *uelp-, perhaps cognate with Latin voluptas. There is no prefix ...
9
The terms "hard" and "soft" aren't used in linguistics; instead, we describe the difference in terms of the difference in production (the vowel of "father" is a back vowel transcribed as [a] or [ɑ], and the vowel of "at" is a front vowel transcribed as [æ]). In the case of English "f" and "v" (or German "v" and "w"), [f] is voiceless and [v] is voiced. There ...
9
L /kasˈtɛl.lʊm/ > VL /kasˈtɛl.lũ/ > OF /t͡ʃahˈtɛl/ > MF /ʃaˈtɛau/> F /ʃaˈto/
L /ˈwɛ.tʊ.lʊm/ > VL /ˈβɛ.lũ/ > /ˈvjɛ.lu/ > OF /vjɛl/ > MF /vjɛu/ > F /vjø/
L /kaˈpɪl.lʊm/ > VL /kaˈβel.lũ/ > OF /t͡ʃəˈvel/ > MF /ʃəˈvɛu/ > F /ʃəˈvø/
L /sɪˈɡɪl.lʊm/ > VL /se.ɣɛl.lũ/ > OF /səˈɛl/ > MF /sɛau/ > F ...
9
You have a few different correspondences here; I'll go through them individually.
day ~ dag ~ dag ~ Tag
This is part of the second German consonant shift (or the High German consonant shift). Among other things, voiced plosives at the start of words turned voiceless in German.
think ~ tenke ~ denken ~ denken
This is due to Germanic dental fricative loss. ...
9
I don't think it's at all common for alveolopalatal and/or sibilant consonants to undergo place changes that are directly conditioned by the presence or absence of voicing: French doesn't actually seem to be an example of this (see below) and I can't think of any actual examples, except for the disputed case of Proto-Semitic *z, which if pronounced [z] may ...
9
All the following information comes from Christopher Upward's The History of English Spelling:
Words that lost initial ‘h’:
OE hlaf ModE ‘loaf’
OE hlud ModE ‘loud’
OE hlædder ModE ‘ladder’
OE hlafdiȝe ModE ‘lady’
OE hliehhan ModE ‘to laugh’
OE hlid ModE ‘lid’
OE hnecca ModE ‘neck’
OE hnæȝan mod ‘neigh’
OE hreddan ModE ‘to rid’
OE hreoȝ ModE ‘rough’
OE hrycȝ ...
8
If you mean "what can I do to learn the distinctions", you need repeated and varied exposure to the sounds in question, and you need some method of telling if you're correct in your hearing and pronunciation. For instance, you might learn the difference between [k] and [q] in the context of learning Arabic. In that case, you would be given many words (indeed ...
8
As commonly reconstructed, PIE had three different types of "velar-ish" plosives:
"Palatal velars" (probably plain velar): *ḱ, *ǵ, *ǵʰ
"Plain velars" (probably uvular): *k, *g, *gʰ
"Labial velars" (probably labial-something): *kʷ, *gʷ, *gʷʰ
We're not sure exactly how they were pronounced; I believe the distinction was probably velar/uvular/labiovelar ...
8
The change from /s/ to /h/ is called debuccalization, from Latin bucca, "mouth". The name is generally applied to any change that turns a non-glottal sound glottal, since it's moving the articulation "out of the mouth"; another example is English /t/ → [ʔ].
The change from /kʷ/ to /p/ doesn't have a universally-accepted name in my experience; I've seen it ...
7
wrt. the other answer:
Romanian sfânt does NOT come from Latin sanctum, but from Slavic svętъ (compare with Polish święty); most Romanian (and Hungarian) Slavic borrowings turned the nasal vowels (which were de-nasalized in most Slavic languages) into vowel + n (vz. luncă, rând, mândru, muncă, smântână, etc).
Romanian /ɨ/ may also come from any vowel + /n/ ...
7
The Proto-Indo-European form behind Zeus is reconstructed as *dyēw-s, with the oblique stem *diw- used for all forms except nominative, accusative, and vocative. This sort of alternation between *yē and *i is common in PIE: look up "ablaut" for more information.
In Proto-Greek, the last common ancestor of the Greek dialects, this turned into something like *...
7
This is an old problem within comparative Germanic linguistics. The main ideas out there have been:
(1) Only Gothic has both þl- and fl-. The other Germanic languages must therefore have undergone a sound change þl- > fl-.
(2) Gothic underwent a sound change fl- > þl-. The Gothic words with fl- are newer loanwords (or other ad hoc solutions).
(3) Gothic ...
7
There is no straightforward explanation for Germanic, but influence from "5" is suspected. There is an article (Patrick Stiles, 1986, NOWELE 8: 3-25) which addresses this but it's not available to me.
7
There is no universal technical meaning for 'hard' and 'soft' when it comes to sounds. You will not find it used by professional phoneticians.
However, within many languages, there are pedagogic conventions for describing hard and soft sounds that do not translate across languages. This is often done in an overlap with orthography.
For example, in English ...
7
It's not based so much in what feels stronger, but on the overall patterns of sound changes. There is a tendency for voiceless consonants to become voiced, and voiced consonants to become continuants or approximants. Sometimes these changes are found in succession; for example, as late Latin developed into Spanish, the voiceless plosives p, t and k were ...
7
I'm only an amateur in historical linguistics, so my viewpoint is fairly naïve. I'd say: not always, but often enough to make regularity the most important consideration in reconstruction.
In modern mainstream historical linguistics, there are several examples where irregular sound changes are accepted. The ones you outlined in English are good attested ...
7
Th-stopping of original Proto-Germanic voiced /d~ð/ to /d/ in all contexts is normal for Old English. It seems to be a common feature of West Germanic languages. The modern-day /ð/ in "father" is due to later changes.
There's a relevant ELU question here: /ð/ → /d/ shift in English
When researching my answer to it, I found Dental fricatives and stops in ...
7
The excellent German etymological dictionary by Pfeiffer has this:
sieben Num. Ahd. sibun (8. Jh.), mhd. siben (md. siven), asächs.
siҍun, mnd. sēven, sȫven, mnl. sēven, nl. zeven, aengl. seofon, engl.
seven, anord. sjau (wohl umgebildet durch frühen Einfluß des unter
acht, s. d., behandelten Zahlworts, vgl. got. ahtau), schwed. sju,
got. sibun (...
7
Proto-Semitic *ϑ becomes /ϑ/ in (classical) Arabic, /t/ in Aramaic and some Arabic dialects, /ʃ/ in Hebrew, /s/ in Amharic, /f/ in some Arabic dialects.
Proto-Semitic *δ becomes /δ/ in (classical) Arabic, /d/ in Aramaic and some Arabic dialects, /z/ in Hebrew, Amharic and Akkadian, etc.
Old Persian /ϑ/ becomes /h/ in Middle and New Persian.
Proto-Iranian *...
7
I'm afraid the most satisfying answer I can give is, these things just change over time, without a solid reason. It's like asking why the vowels in Middle English chain-shifted so dramatically: vowels just tend to shift, and there's no universal pattern to it.
In Old Latin, in particular, the stress had already shifted from the complex rules of Proto-Indo-...
7
There are three different series of guttural sounds reconstructed for Proto-Indogermanic, that are usually represented by *k' (the k that gets satemised), *k (plain k that stays k), and *kʷ (that has many different developments in the different languages, the outcomes include p (Ancient Greek ποῖος (poîos) from *kʷoyo), kw or kv, or plain k.
As the ...
answered Dec 19 '18 at 16:13
jk - Reinstate Monica
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7
Tongan /s/ seems to be the regular reflex of *t before /i/. Wikipedia says
Tongan has retained the original proto-Polynesian *h, but has merged it with the original *s as /h/. (The /s/ found in modern Tongan derives from *t before high front vowels).
That article also says that as a general rule, Tongan retained a Proto-Polynesian phoneme reconstructed ...
7
There are some factors that make vowels more volatile than consonants in general
Consonants have fixed points of articulation and modes of articulation while vowels live in a continuous space
In most languages, consonants have a higher surprisal than vowels, i.e., they carry more information
So vowels can shift around more freely than consonants. But this ...
answered Jan 29 '20 at 10:01
jk - Reinstate Monica
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