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Re: Phonological Relay Proposal

From:Nik Taylor <fortytwo@...>
Date:Sunday, September 10, 2000, 20:45
taliesin the storyteller wrote:
> I can see one problem though. As soon as a lang with a very strict > and simple phonology/syll-structure has adapted the words, it's unlikely > that complexity can increase again, hmm...
Not necessarily. Suppose that one language has a word like [sa'ga], second language turns it into [s@'ka], third language turns it into ['ska], thus, you've gone from CVCV to CCV. Of course, I'm sure that the end result would be far shorter than the original. Incidentally, that example comes from my experimenting in a creolized version of Watakassí. The voiced and voiceless stops were turned into unaspirated and aspirated stops, and the substrate langs tended toward more complex syllables, so unstressed vowels (especially /a/) tended to be dropped. So, sagáuki, "I am speaking" would become sgosh ([skoS]), "to speak". <ki> in W represents /C(i)/, the dropping of the /i/ is not absolute, but has a high rate of occurence in word-final position or before voiceless consonants, never before voiced consonants or when following another consonant or in word-initial position. -- "Only two things are infinite - the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein ICQ: 18656696 AIM Screen-Name: NikTailor