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The way I see it things is like so:
* VL distinguished /b/ and /w/ > /B/ word initially, but not
word internally where they merged, being realized as [b]
after {m, l, r} and [B] elsewhere (see Grandgent §123).
Even in Spanish the merger of b-/B- is late (post-17th
century IIRC).
* W.Gmc. had a single phoneme /b/ which had two allophones
[b] and [B], with [b] occurring after {#, m} only.
* Ergo VL initial /B/ would be equated with W.Gmc. /w/,
since W.Gmc. [B] could not occur in that position,
* while VL [b] after {r, l} would be equated with [B]
anyway, or sometimes with /p/.
It should be noted that *b > p mostly didn't happen in
Franconian dialects, which had a voiced sound written _v,
u_ instead, so you would simply have a Franconian
*Lautstand*, which you'd want anyway in view of p/pf --
although I've seen a lot of _ph_ spellings in the book
(Richard von Kienle "Historische Laut- und Formenlehre des
Deutschen") I'm reading right now. I've not quite gotten
the picture yet, but I think we might find a dialect area
with just the right mix of features and influences to base
our High Germano-Romance standard on -b- > v/f or even w
may well be one of those features. Remember OTL Standard
NHG is an Eintopf of opposing currents and words from
different dialect regions anyway.
Peter Collier skrev:
> We have a few possibilities floating around for Latin
> consonantal <u>. The first point to note is that Latin <u>
> seems to have changed to /B/ just about everywhere quite
> early on.
>
> The WGmc phonology we move over to also has /B/, which is
> <b>. So, if we have /B/ for <u>, then the distinction
> between <b> and <u>/<v> is going to be lost after the
> Romans cross the Rhine - similar to the situation in
> modern Spanish I suppose.
>
> WGmc also has <w>, which as this eventually becomes /v/ in
> High German I''m assuming was actually /P/ (like modern
> Dutch), rather than /w/ (like modern English). It would be
> quite nice to preserve this phoneme, as <w> /v/ is a
> distinctive German feature.
>
> So, we could have Latin consonantal <u> being interpreted
> as /P/ by the Germanians, if the /w/ > /B/ change hadn't
> already taken place. This would then keep it distinct from
> <b> and so enable it to survive. The downside to that is
> if <b> and <w>/<v> remain distinct, we are going to have a
> lot of non-German looking datives ending in <b> or
> <bs> (< -BUS), rather than being able to switch
> them to a more German looking <v> or <f>. A price
> worth paying though to keep <w>?
>
> Finally, <qu> is usually treated quite distinctly in Latin
> and German (up until the High German shift of */P/ to /v/
> at least), which I'm guessing is down to it being [k_w]
> rather than [kw] (or maybe <qu> is /kw/, but other <u> is
> /P/?)? At some point late in the development of High
> German it seems to merge with the other <w>s to become
> /kv/. I guess we need to follow a similar path with the
> Germanican?
>
> Thoughts? *braces himself*
>