BBS in a Box 2/BBS in a box - Trilogy II.iso/Files/Education/H/Irish/lessons/6c

Text File | 1993-02-21 | 7.0 KB | 182 lines | [TEXT/EDIT]

Received: from iegbox.ucd.ie by salmon.maths.tcd.ie  Via SMTP (FibreOptic)
          id aa25711; 15 Jun 92 21:21 BST
Received: from IRLEARN.UCD.IE (MAILER@IRLEARN) by mailgate.ucd.ie (PMDF #12050)
 id <[e-mail]>; Mon, 15 Jun 1992 20:09 GMT
Received: from IRLEARN by IRLEARN.UCD.IE (Mailer R2.08) with BSMTP id 9174;
 Mon, 15 Jun 92 21:15:29 GMT
Date: Mon, 15 Jun 92 16:07:04 -0400
From: [e-mail]
Subject: ELEM-IG Lesson #6-C  Lenition/Eclipsis
Sender: GAELIC Language Bulletin Board <[e-mail]>
To: Multiple recipients of <[e-mail]>
Reply-to: [e-mail]
Message-id: <[e-mail]>
X-Envelope-to: [e-mail], [e-mail]
Status: O



A chairde,

   I have saved this message from Michael Everson until now. In it,
Michael describes lenition and eclipsis in terms that people with a
background in linguistics will appreciate.

   If you haven't had the opportunity to learn phonetics, you will
still want to read the paragraphs at the end of this message which
talk about the history of the article "an" ... and why its shape
long ago results in today's patterns of lenition, and in the t- that
is prefixed before masculine nouns which start with a vowel (e.g.
an t-uan.  Seeing this old form of the article will also help to
make clear to you the various forms of the preposition "i"  when we
encounter it in Lesson #7.
................................................................

"LENITION AND ECLIPSIS"

[ First, Michael explained why he preferred the terms "lenition"
  and "nasalization" to the older terms aspiration and eclipsis.]


Strictly speaking, people may ask about the nasalization: Why is /k/ to
/g/ called nasalization, since there's no nasalization involved? The
answer is that, broadly speaking, the voicing of consonants was caused
by a now-lost nasal consonant. This happens in some relaxed styles of
English: 'thank you' comes out as a sort of 'ang-gyu'. (Very relaxed,
if not slovenly :-) !)

Likewise, aspiration is properly reserved for an added breath, such as the
difference between the p's in English pill and spill. In Irish, lenition
refers by and large to spirantization. Here is a list of the mutations with
what is actually going on phonetically:

     b bh lenition, or spirantization of /b/ to /v/ ~ /w/
     c ch lenition, or spirantization of /k/ to /x/
     d dh lenition, velarized spirantization of /d/ to /G/ (voiced /x/)
          when slender, velarized palatalization of /d/ to /j/
     f fh lenition, /f/ to nothing. Probably historically it was /f/ to
          bilabial /f/ (whispered as in Japanese) to weak /h/ to nothing.
     g gh lenition, spirantization of g to /G/ or palatalization to /j/
     m mh lenition, spirantization of /m/ to /v/ ~ /w/. Once upon a time
          these were actually nasalized sounds.
     p ph lenition, spirantization of /p/ to /f/
     s sh lenition, pharyngealization of alveolar /s/ to /h/
     t th lenition, pharyngealization of dental /t/ to /h/. This was a shift
          from /t/ to /th/ to /h/.

     a na nasalization, addition of /n/ to any vowel
     b mb nasalization of /b/ to /m/
     c gc nasalization, voicing of /k/ to /g/
     d nd nasalization of /d/ to /n/
     f bhf nasalization, voicing of /f/ to /v/ or /w/
     g ng nasalization of /g/ to /ng/
     p bp nasalization, voicing of /p/ to /b/
     t dt nasalization, voicing of /t/ to /d/

Worth mentioning are

     a ha ? aspiration, addition of /h/ to any vowel
     s ts ? ?? occlusion of alveolar /s/ to dental /t/
     a ta ? ?? occlusion of any vowel with dental /t/



The reason for the t added to s and to vowels is that of analogy.

The definite article used to be, in proto-Indo-European times, *sindos
(Masc.), *sinda (Fem), and *sindom (Neut.).

By Celtic times these had become something like *hindos etc. Beginnings
and endings dropped, leaving ind which quickly went to in and an as we
have today. But the influence of those original vowels lingered long
after the endings themselves were lost. Feminine -a caused lenition,
and we still have an bhean from *sinda qwena. Likewise, for masculines,
*sindos > *hinds left a tendency to preserve that original -d before
s and vowels. Thus we have *sindos pater > *hinds ather > ant athair
(which we write an t-athair).



Michael Everson
School of Architecture, UCD, Richview, Clonskeagh, Dublin 14, éire
Phone: [phone]  Fax: [phone]


  Thanks Michael, for this very thorough and helpful explanation.




Received: from iegbox.ucd.ie by salmon.maths.tcd.ie  Via SMTP (FibreOptic)
          id aa22470; 18 Jun 92 3:08 BST
Received: from IRLEARN.UCD.IE (MAILER@IRLEARN) by mailgate.ucd.ie (PMDF #12050)
 id <[e-mail]>; Thu, 18 Jun 1992 02:04 GMT
Received: from IRLEARN by IRLEARN.UCD.IE (Mailer R2.08) with BSMTP id 6981;
 Thu, 18 Jun 92 00:21:39 GMT
Date: Wed, 17 Jun 92 19:15:05 -0400
From: [e-mail]
Subject: ELEM-IG #6-C Hints on eclipsis
Sender: GAELIC Language Bulletin Board <[e-mail]>
To: Multiple recipients of <[e-mail]>
Reply-to: [e-mail]
Message-id: <[e-mail]>
X-Envelope-to: [e-mail], [e-mail]
Status: O


A chairde,

       Michael Collier has sent in the following helpful diagram which
you may find helpful in learning the pattern for eclipsis.

He writes:

        For the present lesson, specifically the part on eclipsis, I write the
eclipsing letters down in the following diagram:

                        m  -  b  -  p

                        n  -  d  -  t  ( - s )

                        ng -  g  -  c

Seeing them diagrammed like this and then pronouncing the letters really helped
me understand what eclipsis (or nasalization) is all about.  The progression of
sounds, reading from right to left, then becomes apparent and can be seen to be
the same for each of the three lines.  I think that this serves as a good memory
aid; at least it does for me.

                                                Slán,
                                                Michael Collier
                                                [e-mail]

From:   MX%"[e-mail]"

             .........................................

  I would just like to add a cautionary note about the line

              n  --  d -- t --  (-s)

  In my mind,  the change of "s" to "ts" is not really part of the
pattern of eclipsis ... but rather part of the pattern for the
article "an". The "t" is actually part of the article "an" which
surfaces before nouns in a few specific situations.  It does apply
to a feminine noun  after the article "an" after a preposition,

                                  e.g.  ag an tsráid  (f)

but not after a masculine noun    e.g.  ag an sorn  (m)

And, later on, when we see examples of eclipsis when no article
is present,  we will see that "s" does not change to "ts".

         e.g.  a sráid   (their street)

  Many thanks for this diagram, Michael,

            Dorothy