From: Christophe Grandsire (christophe.grandsire@free.fr)
Date: Mon May 12 2003 - 19:22:18 EST
En réponse à Anton Sherwood :
>But perhaps <quart> and <quint> are learned forms rather than vernacular.
Nope, they used to be vernacular (although they were replaced later on with
forms in -ième). But what happened with QUINQUE and QUINTUS becoming "cinq"
[sE~k] (ending still pronounced here) and "quint" [kE~t] (at the time it
was used, the endings were probably still pronounced) is that QUINQUE
dissimilated into CINQUE [kiNkwe] because of the presence of the second
[kw]. QUINTUS didn't have this influence and thus didn't change.
Afterwards, they both followed the normal sound changes, with /k/ getting
palatalised by the following /i/, while /kw/ was immune to palatalisation
and lost its labialisation only when palatalisation was not active anymore.
Christophe Grandsire.
http://rainbow.conlang.free.fr
You need a straight mind to invent a twisted conlang.
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