🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <memo.846119@cix.compulink.co.uk>, petex@cix (Peter Christian)
writes:
>In-Reply-To: <1993Jan6.101008.4885@memstvx1.memst.edu>
>connolly@memstvx1.memst.edu

>>In article <memo.842322@cix.compulink.co.uk>, petex@cix.compulink.co.uk
>>(Peter Christian) writes:
>>>In-Reply-To: <robrtsnj-311292101210@peirce.byu.edu> robrtsnj@yvax.byu.edu
>>>(John S. Robertson)

>>>I am right in assuming Latin quinque shows assimilation rather than a
>>>genuine p > kw?
>>
>>It shows a genuine p > kw *by* assimilation!
>
>Yes, that was a careless formulation of mine, but I took it that the original
>message was about regular sound changes rather than unique assimilatory
>changes.
>
>>The interesting thing is that Late Latin undid it by dissimilating the new
>>kw to k: Italian _cinque_ [c^ingkwe], French _cinq_ [sae~k] etc. reflect an
>>(unattested?) Vulgar Latin *_cinque_ [kingkwe].
>
>The other interesting thing is that Germanic also had a problem with *penkwe
>(or whatever) and assimilated the *other* consonant, i.e. kw > p (the normal
>reflex of IE *kw being Gmc. *x). Or pehaps it was after the First Sound Shift
>and the assimilation was x > f.

There is (may be) more at work in Germanic than assimilations.  There are a few
lexical items which do not show the expected development *k<w> > *x<w>, but
rather *k<w> > *f.  Whether *k<w> > **p in some environment prior to Grimm's
law, or afterwards *x<w> -> *f, is indeterminate.  But besides the evidence of
"5," we have other words such as "wolf," Gothic Wulfila "Little Wolf" <
*wlk<w>o-.

(NB:  "4" is suspect as evidence since the numbers influence each other any
way, and a simple assimilation in "5" could lead to one in "4" as well.)
-- 
Rich Alderson   'I wish life was not so short,' he thought.  'Languages take
                such a time, and so do all the things one wants to know about.'
                                                        --J. R. R. Tolkien,
alderson@leland.stanford.edu                              _The Lost Road_