🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1993Jan8.002108.20583@leland.Stanford.EDU>, alderson@cisco.com
(Rich Alderson) wrote:
> 
> 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 

Just a reminder that x became f rather unpredictably in English, as in
laugh, rough, tough, trough and others, but not, for example, though,
through and others. The phenomenon of peripheral consonants going either
way (labials to velars or vice versa) is well attested. I would note that
in the English examples, and apparently in the German examples, there seems
to be a *tendency* for the movement from velar to labial in the context of
rounding (proximate or distant), and in such contexts there is a tendency
for elision of w's (as e.g. English who, sword, whore and the like). So...I
wonder if it's the case of kw going to f, or of kw > xw > x /some context
of rounding where the shift is only partially and up to this point
unpredictably realized.
John Robertson