Re: Word-initial sound changes

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Constructed Languages List [mailto:CONLANG@LISTSERV.BROWN.EDU]On
> Behalf Of And Rosta
> Sent: Friday, February 4, 2000 2:16 PM
> To: CONLANG@LISTSERV.BROWN.EDU
> Subject: 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.
Ah. Actually my whole question is diachronic in nature. I somehow forgot
that the word lenition is also applied to synchronic changes :)

> 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.)
Good idea, but I wanted to use the set plain/ejective/aspirated, all
unvoiced, because I like it so much estheticly.

Eric Christopherson / *Aiworegs Ghristobhorosyo suHnus
raccoon@elknet.net