Re: Plausible Sound-shifts

On Mar 10, 2007, at 1:37 AM, Jason Monti wrote:

> Okay, I'm thinking a little more about my proto-lang's phonology and
> constraints.
>
> I've added /T/ <þ>, /D/ <ð>, /S/ <c>, and /Z/ <j>
>
> I've decided that all words whose final consonant is voiced shall
> end in a
> schwa.
>
> This allows me to end words with m, n, w, r, l, and y, without them
> acting
> weird in morphological changes.
>
> Instead of having the final-s clusters (ps, ts, ks), I decided to
> have some
> fun with symetrical affricates and changed them to pf, bv, tþ, dð,
> ts, dz,
> tc, and dj.
What do you mean by "symetrical affricates"? Those look like regular
affricates.

>
> I still allow for sp, st, sk, sm, and sn, word-initial, and none of
> the
> above symetrical affricates are allowed word-initial.
>
> Now, I need to know if its plausible to have had sound shifts that
> would
> yeild the following kinds of words:
>
> Initial fricatives (v'ed or v'less), but no initial affricates
> (other than
> the s-clusters).
> However, word-final, if there is nothing between the vowel and the
> consonant
> (no syllabant) then you may also have a fricative, but not an
> affricate. If
> there is a syllabant between the vowel and the consonant, then the
> fricative
> must affricate: f > pf, and so on.
I'm not sure what you mean by "syllabant". Does it mean sounds which
can be either syllabic or not, depending on the grade of the adjacent
vowel?

>
> So you can have:
>
> fet, but not pfet.
> tef, but not tepf
> tenpf, but not tenf
> terpf, but not terf
> teypf, but not teyf
>
> No giminates allowed (except in compounds where two Ss but up
> against one
> another.
>
> I've decided to not allow double syllabants surrounding a vowel, so
> you
> can't have an initial AND final syllabant, and you cannot have a
> vowel by
> itself without a syllabant, so your only options are *we*, *le*,
> *en*, *er*,
> and *ey*.
>
> Thoughts?