Talk:Lenition
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[edit] Lenition vs. soft mutation
In my limited experience of discussion of Gaelic, I've seen "lenition" used much more often than in English-language discussion of Welsh. When people are talking about Welsh, they seem to tend to call the same phenomenon "soft mutation". I don't know why this should be. Has anyone else noticed this? and is it something we should mention? Marnanel 16:49, 23 Jun 2004 (UTC)
[edit] Miscellaneous comments
I've just removed a whole passage that is rather irrelevant to the discussion of lenition, even though it may be of some value in other articles. I'm quoting it after this. It reads a bit confusingly but the problem is that it mixes phonology with orthographical conventions (a big no-no), and the phonology part is rather sui generis. --Pablo D. Flores 11:00, 1 Feb 2005 (UTC)
- Although probably not true to the dictionary definition, or the true meaning of the word, this term is also used, (just as is aspiration) to describe the effect of what sometimes happens when one adds an 'h' after a consonant to form a new consonant sound. The resulting sounds are marked by the passage of air during the consonant sound (producing a new sound), rather than directly afterward (producing the same sound with a hiss/buzz on the end). Irish Gaelic, for instance, uses these principles often. The 'b', in Irish, is very similar to the English 'b'; however, the 'bh' is like a 'b', only the lips don't quite touch, and thus it is like a 'v' sound, without using the teeth (lips only). Similarly, the Irish 'c' is like an English 'k'; the Irish 'ch' is like a 'k' that is not connected (air can still travel through during the sound), producing a sound somewhat like the 'h' in the word 'huge'. Sometimes, English consonants follow these rules, as with the 'th' in 'thing', the 'sh' in 'shell', and so forth.
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- Just for the record, one doesn't add 'h' after a consonant to form a new sound -- one may add 'h' to a consonant letter to produce a new digraph that may be read as another sound. But 'th' is not to 't' what 'sh' is to 's', and neither is what 'ch' is to 'k' in Irish... Orthography is arbitrary and absolutely irrelevant to the discussion of a phonological process (it's as relevant to phonology as discussing whether you write down the sounds using a pen, a pencil or a brush). --PDF
- All instances of this do not completely follow these rules, as the tongue and mouth positions sometimes shift slightly to accomodate a better sound, and thus we get some interesting sound like the 'ch' in chalk, which seems to have its roots in the 'ts' in cats much more than the c in cats or the c in certify (note how the 'c' in some slavic languages makes this sound); with this same train of thought, the English 'j' sound, as in 'jam' has already been altered by these rules, and is the vocal version of the 'ch' as in 'chalk'; the unaltered version would make a sound like the 'ts' in 'cats', only vocalized, thus producing the 'ds' (like a 'dz') sound as in 'odds'.
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- This is rather confused (and confusing, if you don't know better). The sound represented by English 'ch' is a fricative; 'ts' is two consonants ('t' and 's'), and neither derives from the other in any sense (in English at least).
- The 'ch' as used in some languages, does not follow these rules, as it still sounds like a 'k'. It seems probable that such forms follow the true definition of this word.
[edit] another sense
This word is also used more generally to refer to any assimilatory-type or loss-type phonological process. Lenition is the opposite of fortition. Then, 3 types of processes: (1) lenition, (2) fortition, (3) metrical. Maybe the idea of lenition comes from Roman Jakobson (?). — ishwar (SPEAK) 15:18, 2005 Mar 31 (UTC)
[edit] the scale goes like what?
The section "the scale goes like this: unvoiced -> voiced -> fricative" is ambiguous: it is not immediately clear to a reader whether the progression is weak-to-strong or strong-to-weak. Perhaps someone who is more certain than I am would be kind enough to add some kind of indication?
[edit] Irish orthography
The discussion of matters of Irish orthography seems out of place in an otherwise linguistic article. And this area should be dealt with properly. Welsh and Breton orthographical choices deserve a mention as the contrast between the strategies that have been adopted by modern Gaelic languages is interesting. However, these matters deserve to be dealt with somewhere, and in fact the subject of language communities' orthographical strategic choices are insightful to linguists in showing native speakers' intuitions.
- I don't think that anyone would disagree that the orthographies] deserve a separate article. The present text was parked here pending such an article, to be written by someone who knows rather more than I do about the subject (and maybe to provoke that person into doing so!). If you feel you could make at least a first cut, then please do so and others will improve. --Red King 23:14, 12 October 2005 (UTC)
[edit] Fortition needs a seperate article
I have changed the redirect page at Fortition into a stub; I believe it needs its own article regardless of its rarity. Raifʻhār Doremítzwr 13:00, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
[edit] More examples needed
It would be nice to have some examples of diachronic lenition in the Celtic languages, as well, in the article. FilipeS 12:43, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Merger?
Consonant mutation, Consonant gradation, Spirantization, Lenition, Fortition and Fortis and lenis all seem to be about the same kind of phenomenon. Perhaps they should be merged. FilipeS 21:28, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
