Bernardo Stempel, Patrizia de
The Accents of Celtic

New Light on the Older and Oldest Stages.

This book investigates in depth 14 Celtic phenomena resulting from the weakening of unstressed syllables (vocalic assimilations and reductions up to syncope, degeminations, 'w'-loss, nasal effacement, metathesis of liquids) and the strengthening of stressed ones (vocalic epenthesis and diphthongizations, geminations of consonants). The stress-patterns emerging from them are corroborated by the originally Celtic toponymy in today's non-Celtic-speaking countries and allow us to reconstruct the Celtic subfamily of languages by drawing a much simpler accentual model which also finds typological support. With its diachronic discussion of more than 3,600 words the book represents, moreover, a big help in the understanding of Celtic lexicon and onomastics. XVIII,430 Seiten mit Abb., gebunden (Indogermanische Bibliothek. 3. Reihe: Untersuchungen/Universitätsverlag Winter 2023)