Re: The World Atlas of Language Structures

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.........