A FEW WHYs FOR LINGUISTS

© 2000 by Orchid Land Publications

[updated 2-18-00]

     There are a number of interesting phenomena in languages that (so far as my reading has made me aware) have not been satisfactorily disposed of by linguists.

     1. Why has //t//, when preceded by a stressed nucleus and followed by an unstressed nucleus--as in city--changed to a glottal stop in Britain, but to [d] in Ireland, North America, Australia, New Zealand, and southern Africa?  

The glottal stop (which may well  have begun before syllabic-n) must have been a way station on the road to //t/-DELETION in fasten, hasten, (s)often,etc.; it is still heard in equivalent environments in German, whether derived from //t// or from //d//.  while //t// becomes [d] in the environment illustrated in warranty, etc., in North America, as well as in the internuclear environments illustrated in city and equitable, the change of //d// to //t// = glottal stop in didn't, wouldn't, etc. in younger Southern States English and elsewhere, is heard also in German.  Note further that in some Irish lects, the apical stops have become retroflex sibilants in the environments illustrated by city and ready.  Note too that //z// becomes //d// in Southern States isn't, wasn't, and doesn't as well as in business--where the //n// is non-syllabic.  

     2.  What is it about Modern Greek and Spanish that causes them to share not only the fricativization of voiced stops in most positions (making them parallel to the voiceless fricatives in both languages) but also retroflexed sibilants, and a tonal accent (rather than prosodic lengthening as in cognate languages?  The absence of [h] could be independently due to the existence of a velar or (in Spanish) uvular or prevelar fricative.  Could this be due to southern Spain's being long under the Byzantine-Roman empire before the Arab and then Moorish hegemony?  (Of course the "Arabic sound," jota, in Spanish came from Arabic and then was passed on to Dutch (other Low Germanic tongues had palatal [j]) during the long periods of Spanish hegemony in the Low Countries?  The retroflex "s" in Dutch has also got to be of Spanish origin.

     3. It is obvious what the analysis in the following is, but it is not clear what the explanation is.  Compare:

--They don't do it for anyone any more (any longer).
--They do if for no one *any more (any longer).

(The latter example (in which any is not allowed) is valid only for speaker's who do not use anymore as equivalent to "nowadays." )  We know that unmarked negation is attracted to conjunctions in Latin, to determiner-quantifiers in German, and to predicates in many other languages.  The foregoing contrast in English must be related to its marking negation (more than it already is in most environments) by markering prenominal determiner-quantifiers as negative.   But how does that account for the contrast shown?  Consider that the adverb itself can be negated.

--They do it no more (no longer).
--No more (No longer) do they do it.

If you wish to suggest other queries in this category, CLICK HERE.

SEE ALSO HERE

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