Re: Unilang: the Phonotactics

At 1:33 pm -0400 20/4/01, David Peterson wrote:
>In a message dated 4/20/01 10:11:22 AM, ray.brown@FREEUK.COM writes:
>
><< Scots _loch_ and German _Bach_ are normally pronounced by my fellow
>countrymen with final /k/; and Van Gogh becomes /v&ngQf/. >>
>
>    An [f] at the end of Van Gogh?!  Where the heck did that come from?
Search me - but that's the way I've heard it pronounced by my fellow
country these past 60 years.

><<So what do we do to avoid assimilation?  Put in an extra [p] as in _dreamt_
>/drEmpt/?  What about the sequence -mk- /mpk/ ???>>
>
>    I have no problem with this if the [m] is hummed before the [k] in an
>onset position like in Swahili (though in Swahili it'd be an [N]), but I
>don't think I've ever heard of an [mk] coming in a coda...  Pumpkin's got
>your [p] right in it, and, unless I hum the [m], I have to pronounce the [p].
> But then, the [k] is in the onset.  There is no word in English that ends
>with [mk], right?  Sally: "That guy's a humk!"  Hmm...
That's right.  But I don't see the relevance.  I was commenting on Unilang,
not English.  Nor was I talking about codas.

Oscar had, in any case, said that codas could consist only _one_ consonant
in Unilang so whether /mk/ occurs as a coda in English seems totally
irrelevant.

Maybe instead of English _dreamt_ I should've quoted latin _e:mptum_,
supine of _e:mere_ (to buy) where we have an epenthetic /p/.

But I did say the sequence -mk- with a hyphen both sides.  It could occur
in Unilang only if the /m/ is the coda of one syllable and /k/ is the onset
of the next.  All I meant is: Is that assimilated to [Nk] or is the [m]
kept without assimilation?  (An epenthe

My dictionary gives both /'pVmkIn/ and /'pVmpkIn/ as pronunciations of
_pumpkin_, adding that often in the US it's pronounced /'pVNkIn/.  Not sure
that "often" is correct?

_Bumkin_ and _bumpkin_ are alternative spellings and, presumably,
pronunciations.  But is _lambkin_ ever pronounced with an epenthetic /p/?

Ray.




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A mind which thinks at its own expense
will always interfere with language.
                   [J.G. Hamann 1760]
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