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Re: The beautifulest phonology

From:Roger Mills <romilly@...>
Date:Thursday, March 21, 2002, 4:38
Raymond Brown wrote:


>Oh well, as others are joining in........
That's about my attitude toward such a subjective topic.......Nevertheless, ladies and gentlemen-- Front rounded vowels are Anathema. High central (barred-i) is Good. Not too many fricatives, please. I suppose it's best summed up in the Buginese (natlang) system: p t tS k b d dZ g m n ñ N w l r s (h and j also, but not natively; actually /b d/ are non-native in a lot of cases, vs. /w/ and /r/) Only permitted finals: /N/ and [?] alternating with -k-, -r-, -s-. The neatest part is the historical changes of Nasal plus vl. Stop > geminate vl. stop and Nasal plus vd. stop > nasal plus vl. stop; but *nd > /nr/ Vowels i e 1(or @ depending on analysis) a u o, with automatic gemination after /1~@/ Some verbal conjugation, and just enough morphophonemics to keep things interesting. A curious thing: Dirk E. included /tT/ in his most beautiful phonology--- that sound has been present, one way or another, in all my linguistic speculations since teen years. Proto-Kash had a *t_h, which developed to **tT early on, and results in /s/ in modern Kash.