Subject: Re: [lojban] Re: gizmu

From: "Lionel Vidal" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 2 Oct 2002 09:41:12 +0200

aulun:
>> I see no reason why lojban will be spared this natural tendency.
>> In french, even if it is usually seen as bad accent to do it, and people
>> do try to avoid it in formal speech, it always shows in current usage:
>> human laziness is always the winner :-)
>This phenomenon is called 'Sandhi', e.g. the change from Chinese 'ni3
hao3'=
>to 'ni2 hao3 is so-called 'tone sandhi'.

Interresting: first time I've ever seen this general rule of chinese
pronounciation linked (I should say assimilated:-) to assimilation.

>Sandhi occurs also in Hungarian (e.g. egyszer -> ettszer; egészség ->
egéss=
>ég), Rumanian (e.g. nothing to eat: 'nimic de mâncat' -> 'nimig de mâncat')
and =
>many other languages - except for German ;-( I think.

You can find it even in german :-), although the rule is much more
complex with numerous exception words, but can be seen as a
special kind of assimilation:
Abt [apt], Herbst [herpst]
(the rule is actually that a voiced may become unvoiced, the reverse
being highly unusual. It can happen even in words that would be
considered already assimilated in others languages, especially in
compounds, compare Handball [hantbal] and Radfahrer [ratfarer]...
one of numerous things that makes my german accent hopeless!)

-- Lionel