Re: retroflex consonants

Hello!

On 6/6/05, Rob Haden <magwich78@...> wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> I was wondering if anyone here knows how retroflex consonants can arise in
> a language.  For example, can it arise through glottalization?
From what I remember about Indian languages (in India; not Native
American languages! ;) , retroflex consonants can come from other
context/assimilation phenomena. For example, some of the rules for
internal sandhi (assimilation/dissimilation within words) in Sanskrit
transform a dental plosive, nasal, or sibilant into a retroflex one
when it's preceded by a /k/ or a /u/ -- so I guess that in this
particular case, the retracted tongue root is to blame.

I just made a little experiment and found that when I put my tongue
into the /k/ position and then raise the tip of my tongue, it is
indeed easier to reach the postalveolar region than it is to reach my
teeth or alveoles. So it's probably safe to assume that other things
that happen in the back of the mouth, or further down one's throat,
such as glottalization, may give dental consonants retroflex
allophones, and later on, even lead to the development of retroflex
phonemes.

That still doesn't explain why Sanskrit (or any other language, for
that matter) acquired retroflex instead of "plain" postalveolar
consonants, though. Unfortunately the only other piece of information
I have to offer on this subject is that there probably was some
influence from neighboring (Dravidian) languages -- so Sanskrit
speakers may have been more familiar with the concept of retroflex
articulation than with the postalveolar articulation that's more
familiar to the average Westerner -- but I'm afraid I have no idea
where those Dravidian languages got their retroflex consonants (i.e.
did they develop in these languages, and if so, how; or were they
borrowed from some other language(s), and if so, which one(s), and how
did they arise there?).

Hope that helps anyway...

Regards,
Julia

--
   Julia Simon (Schnecki) -- Sprachen-Freak vom Dienst
_@"  schnecki AT iki DOT fi / helicula AT gmail DOT com  "@_
si hortum in bybliotheca habes, deerit nihil
                                        (M. Tullius Cicero)

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