User talk:MrPritzel

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--Apisite (talk) 01:22, 10 September 2021 (UTC)

Old Spanish /dʒ/, /ʒ/
Hi MrPritzel,

I don't think any source supports having these as separate phonemes, as on juuentut versus mensagero. We are dealing with one phoneme which has potentially both [dʒ] and [ʒ] as allophones (the latter intervocalic). Nicodene (talk) 14:02, 21 December 2022 (UTC)


 * I think there are some other entries with a post-consonantal fricatives written as stops (not by my disgression, I mean). Should we collapse those onto the phoneme too? I think it could be a bit misleading at a glance to hide the allophony, though. Or misleading to show the allophony? I'm not sure. Overall, I think I kinda followed the standard of phonetic precision that was already there in some places. MrPritzel (talk) 17:23, 21 December 2022 (UTC)


 * @MrPritzel Do you mean, for instance, /d/ versus /ð/? That was intentional, reflecting the view that Old Spanish distinguished /d ɡ/ (< intervocalic Latin /t k/) from /ð ɣ/ (< intervocalic Latin /d ɡ/). Sources that indicate this include:
 * Lloyd 1987 (From Latin to Spanish, p. 241)
 * Penny 2002 (A history of the Spanish language, p. 76)
 * Dworkin 2018 (A guide to Old Spanish, p. 23)


 * Granted, this is not directly evidenced in the spelling, and the argument is based on structural parallelism with the intervocalic /b/–/β/ distinction.


 * As for [dʒ] and [ʒ], the phonemic representation would have to be /ʒ/ in order to avoid making the claim that the phoneme was distinct in intervocalic position from /ʒ/ < Latin [lj], as in mugier (and no source, as far as I am aware, claims that the latter was ever [dʒ]). We could have, for instance, /ʒuβenˈtut/ [dʒ-], to indicate the possible 'strong' allophone in word-initial position. Nicodene (talk) 19:38, 21 December 2022 (UTC)
 * Okay, I agree. I will change all the [dʒ]s back to /ʒ/.
 * However, does this judgement entail that all instances of this kind of allophony are to be reverted? For example, I saw a few entries with initial /β/. Like /ʒ/, I would think /β/ would be a stop in initial position. I suppose for the same reasons as above, those should be reverted to the underlying phoneme? MrPritzel (talk) 20:50, 21 December 2022 (UTC)
 * @MrPritzel There was a phonemic distinction between /β/ and /b/ in Old Spanish (in word-initial position and intervocalically), per the above three and numerous other sources. The distinction still survives in Ladino, incidentally, though with a labiodental instead of /β/.
 * In general though, yes, I would revert cases where allophonic variation is mistakenly indicated in phonemic transcriptions. Nicodene (talk) 23:42, 21 December 2022 (UTC)
 * Okay, thank you. Sorry for making a bit of a mess.
 * While we're here talking about stops, I have another question: would Arabic ب be borrowed as /β/ or /b/? To my recollection, a few entries suggested the former, but I don't think that makes sense. In short, should algibe be /alˈʒibe/ or /alˈʒiβe/, and should axeb be /aˈʃep/ or /aˈʃeɸ/?
 * I don't really know of any evidence either way. However, I think the seeming absence of *algive and *axef says something. But then there's darbe/darve.
 * Thank you for you time. MrPritzel (talk) 23:58, 21 December 2022 (UTC)
 * That's a good question- I'm really not sure. I'll see whether I can dig up an answer.
 * I wouldn't worry about darbe/darve in particular as Old Spanish v and b seem to have merged early on in consonant clusters (Penny 2002: p. 37). Nicodene (talk) 00:39, 22 December 2022 (UTC)