Re: A question on palatalization.

----- Original Message -----
From: Steven Williams

In a number of languages, such as Japanese, Irish Gaelic and my own Mierii,
[i] causes palatalization in preceding vowels. Is the prevailing tendency
for [i] to cause [t] and [d] to become [t_S] and [d_Z], or to [c] and [J]?

[reply]

It does just that in Japanese, yes. But in other languages it doesn't. If
the language already has phonemic [tS] and/or [dZ], then they would probably
become [tj] and [dj]. Russian does exactly that (it just has [tS] but not
[dZ]). But other Slavonic languages, such as Belarussian and Polish, have
reflexes of [tsj] and [dzj].

Sanskrit had a different set of reflexes: |t th d dh| when neighboring |i I|
became retroflexes.

I don't know the statistics of how often [ti] > [tSi], etc. however.