Mutation in Celtic
Pavel Iosad
August 2021
 

The Celtic languages are characterized by an elaborate system of alternations of word-initial segments, traditionally known as ‘consonant mutations’. Although historically they arose from across-the-board phonological sandhi, they are now deeply embedded in morphosyntactic processes. They are relatively phonologically coherent, but also non-concatenative, and sensitive to a wide range of lexical, morphological, syntactic, and semantic factors. As a result, Celtic mutations present an important test bed for theories of word structure and its interactions with both phonology and morphology. This chapter describes the principal mutation patterns across the Celtic languages, and aims to pinpoint those questions that are of particular importance for theoretical progress.
Format: [ pdf ]
Reference: lingbuzz/006224
(please use that when you cite this article)
Published in: Prepared for inclusion in Peter Ackema, Sabrina Bendjaballah, Eulàlia Bonet, and Antonio Fábregas (eds.), The Blackwell companion to morphology.
keywords: morphology, phonology, celtic, consonant mutation, phonology-morphology interface
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