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Re: The World Atlas of Language Structures

From:ROGER MILLS <rfmilly@...>
Date:Sunday, April 27, 2008, 1:39
Li-sasxek wrote:
> > [mailto:CONLANG@listserv.brown.edu] On Behalf Of Eugene Oh > > > I'd say the voiced stops have changed to such an extent that > > they have now > > become approximants/fricatives and the plosive forms are now > > the allophones. > > Particularly in Castilian. > > Correct me if I'm wrong, since I'm no Spanish speaker, but I thought > > nowadays the stops occur only in clusters? I think what the > > site meant would > > be that the voicing contrast in stops has evolved into a > > litany of other > > sounds and that the "best", or easiest, or whatever, way to > > classify them > > would be to throw them into a "fricative" category. Perhaps. > >I'm not a native either but stops occur in clusters (what few there are) >and at the beginning of a word so "dedo" would be [deDo].
That's correct. It's certainly possible to analyze Span. vd.stops as allophones of phonemic vd.frics., but it's (a) typologically odd and (b) historically incorrect, and IMNSHO (c) obtuse.........