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Lenition revisited1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 October 2008

LAURIE BAUER
LAURIE BAUER*
Affiliation:
Victoria University of Wellington
*
Author's address: School of Linguistics and Applied Language Studies, P.O. Box 600, Wellington, New Zealand. [email protected]
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Abstract

The definition of lenition remains problematic, with several competing and at times incompatible definitions being current. What is more, some of these definitions seem to lead to paradoxes. In this paper, some of these paradoxes are considered, and a revised definition of lenition is suggested which, while being compatible with the spirit of earlier definitions, arguably avoids the problems to which those other definitions give rise. The relationship of lenition to assimilation is considered, as is the relationship between lenition and position. An argument is made that position, while important in determining where lenition might occur in individual cases, is not in itself causally linked with the processes of lenition. The question of whether strength can be equated with resistance to change is also considered, and answered in the negative.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Linguistics , Volume 44 , Issue 3 , November 2008 , pp. 605 - 624
Copyright
Copyright © 2008 Cambridge University Press

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Footnotes

[1]

Some of the material in this paper was presented at the 22nd Scandinavian Linguistics Meeting in Aalborg in June 2006, and at the LAGB meeting in Newcastle-upon-Tyne in August–September 2006. I should like to thank the audiences at those meetings for their discussion of the issues canvassed here; Paul Warren who commented on earlier drafts; and the anonymous referees for Journal of Linguistics for their careful reading.

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