Re: NATLANG: o_0? re: consonant clusters
From: | Muke Tever <mktvr@...> |
Date: | Monday, December 9, 2002, 15:56 |
From: "Nik Taylor" <yonjuuni@...>
> David Peterson wrote:
> >
> > I can't remember exactly, but here's the sonority hierarchy (i.e., most
sonorous to
> > least) as I remember it:
> >
> > 1.) vowel
> > 2.) semi-vowel
> > 3.) liquid
> > 4.) nasal
> > 5.) fricative
> > 6.) stop/affricate
> >
> > And the way you build syllables that are (allegedly) easiest to
> > pronounce is that you start the word from the high end, and build as
> > you see fit moving down the line, until you get to the vowel, then you
> > build up from least to greatest if you want an end consonant cluster.
>
> Actually, that's backwards. You go from lowest -> highest -> lowest, so
> _skald_ is perfectly fine with the hierarchy, but _ksadl_ would violate
> it.
I thought these European sC-clusters violated the sonority hierarchy? so [ksV]
is more normal than [skV] (hence things like many IE langs dropping the [s], or
the Romance prosthetic vowel)... and [knV] beats [nkV], etc. but on the other
end, [Vld] is more normal than [Vdl], right.. so it should be 6 > 1 > 6.
(right?)
*Muke!
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http://www.frath.net/
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