Origin of the term liquid .. (Stuart Rosen )


Subject: Origin of the term liquid ..
From:    Stuart Rosen  <stuart@xxxxxxxx>
Date:    Tue, 31 Jan 2006 11:09:57 +0000

from John Wells, Phonetics & Linguistics, UCL <wells@xxxxxxxx>: The origin of the term 'liquid' is a Latin (mis)translation of a Greek technical term. The Greek grammarians used _hygros_ 'fluid' for r, l, n, m, in reference to the fact that when they follow a plosive (as in tr) they permit the quantity of the preceding syllable containing a short vowel to be "doubtful" (ie it can count as either short or long for metric purposes, as in Greek _patros_, Latin _patris_). This term was translated into Latin as _liquidus_. In Latin, however, this metric principle does not apply to m and n, so the term 'liquid' has come to have a more restricted sense. See Allen, W.S., 1965, Vox Latina: a guide to the pronunciation of Classical Latin, CUP, p. 32. -- /*------------------------------------------------------*/ Stuart Rosen, PhD Professor of Speech and Hearing Science Dept of Phonetics & Linguistics University College London 4 Stephenson Way London NW1 2HE England Directions to Wolfson House (where I am based): http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/dept/maps.html Tel: (+ 44 [0]20) 7679 7404 Admin: (+ 44 [0]20) 7679 7401 Fax: (+ 44 [0]20) 7679 5107 Email: stuart@xxxxxxxx Home page: http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/stuart/home.htm /*------------------------------------------------------*/


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