Re: me again
| From: | Paul Bennett <paul.bennett@...> |
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| Date: | Wednesday, May 22, 2002, 2:52 |
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On 21 May 2002 at 20:59, Thomas R. Wier wrote:
> > Consonantal inventory:
> >
> > p ph ps b m
> > k kh ks g N
> > t th ts d n
>
> So, presumably <ps> and <ks> here represent consonant *clusters*
> and not affricates, right?
>
Er, yeah.
The process that started it all (at some point in an intervening proto-
language) was:
ti: > tsi
This was analogically followed by cases of <k> and <p> in the same
environment, and then the "sibilated" consonants became fairly
phonemic, and then some were lost to levelling and general wear &
tear, while others cropped up for about the same reasons. I'm not
being very scientific about it, I'm afraid. I'm fairly much writing the
sound-change laws as and when I need to get a new lex.
They're considered phonemic by native speakers, but I couldn't yet
point out any rock-solid minimal pairs.
FWIW, the archigraphemes for the three (in the more modern
coptic/hebrew script) are zeta, phei and khei. Representation in the
older cuneiform script is usually just Ci-, with occasional minor
variation (e.g. iC-si or Ci-si).
---
Pb
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