Re: Word-initial sound changes

Eric (ErgGkhri sdofrsn ~ Erg Gkhrisdfrsn):
> I know that in languages I'm familiar with that use some form of lenition
> (voicing or fricativization, or both), lenition doesn't occur
> word-initially. My question is, how unreasonable would it be for lenition to
> occur word (and phrase)-initially too? I'd like to have a phonology of plain
> stops, aspirated stops, and glottalized stops, all unvoiced, and have the
> plain stops become voiced. Make sense?
In certain English accents lenition (affrication or spirantization) of
word- or phrase- intial plosives occurs (e.g. utterance-initial /t/ realized
with apical [s] in Scouse). But to my amateurish eye, voicing of initial
plosives (when not intervocalic) seems rather more unlikely; earlier
messages have established that we so far have not come up with any synchronic
examples.

I wonder whether it might not be easier to make voicing a default property
of the plain stops, and define the environments in which voicing is lost.
(That's how it is in Livagian.)

--And.