The sound change *s- > n- in Arapaho

• Guillaume Jacques ^[1]
  1. [1] Institut National des Langues et Civilisations Orientales

     Institut National des Langues et Civilisations Orientales

     París, Francia

     
• Localización: Folia lingüística histórica, ISSN 0168-647X, Vol. 34, Nº 1, 2013, págs. 43-58
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • The sound change *s > n in initial position in Arapaho is unparalleled in the world’s languages, and previous attempts at explaining it have failed to produce a convincing account of its intermediate stages. This article presents two hypotheses to account for the correspondence between PA *s- and Arapaho n-, taking into account not only the individual steps of this particular proto-phoneme, but the evolution of the whole consonant system. It shows that the change *s > n in initial position only appears to reflect an unnatural development: it can in fact be explained in terms of a sequence of natural changes and mergers.