Re: nu alltr e gw alltr?

["Raymond A. Brown" <raybrown@clara.co.uk>]

At 2:51 pm -0500 12/11/98, Padraic Brown wrote:
........
>> 1. on the evidence of germination in Italian, should Brithenig prep. _a_
>> be followed by aspirant mutation;
>>
>> ad + C > a + CC > a + Ch
>
>Germination?  Is it planting season already? :-)  I thought that
>particular prep. already aspirated, since the d of ad would have been
>reduced probably to dh then h,

No it wouldn't as the -d had been lost before consonants well before the
end of the BC period; -d remained _only_ before vowels as it still does in
modern Italian.

>causing a mutation:
>
>ad casam --> adh casa --> ah chasse --> a chas or similar.

Main problem is that the _start_ in incorrect.  Although Classical Latin
orthography had 'ad casam' it is clear it was pronounced [ak'kasa~] even
before the end of the BC period.  It would've been [ak'kasa] in the
proto-language and, as I said elsewhere, I do not see how -kk- would
plausibly develop to -x- within what I understand of Brithenig.  Certainly
it would not so develop in Brittonic Celtic.

Indeed, if /ad/ had remained before vowels - and there is no evidence that
it did so in Gaul, so we should be very wary of assuming it did in Britain,
the we'd have had adh before vowels.  But geminated consonants would
presumbly have become single consonants without any further mutation,
surely.

At 5:08 pm -0500 12/11/98, John Cowan wrote:
.......
> How about collision with Latin a < ab, which would
>cause no mutation?  Presumably this would be written af with silent f.

I don't see why it should not cause mutation if 'ad' is expected too.
But AFAIK 'a'/ 'ab'/'abs' [aps] did not survive as a separate preposition
in proto-Romance because of the obvious confusion with 'a(d)' especially
when vowel length ceased to be phonemic.  The only survivals of 'a(b)' that
come to mind are:
Italian da (from) <-- DE A(B) - this causes gemination of a following
consonant IIRC.
French avec (with [it]) <-- AB HOC - it can still be used adverbially in
modern French as well as in its more familar role as a preposition.

Ray.