Re: Phonological Relay Proposal

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.

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