Re: THEORY: Semivowels

On Wed, 8 Sep 1999, Nik Taylor wrote:

> Tom Wier wrote:
> > Well, technically I suppose they could, because nasality is merely
> > the opening up of the nasal cavity an an additional cavity for
> > the resonating of the sound.  But I've never heard or read about
> > any language that does this.
>
> I have, unfortunately, I can't remember the language.  However, this
> was, IIRC, merely a form of progressive nasalization, so that it was an
> allophone, something like [kana~j~a~pa], where the rule was that
> nasalization continued forward until it reached a stop.
The Mixtecan languages have progressive nasal assimilation of the
type you describe, but I don't seem to recall these languages having
glides...

Matt.