dl (was: RE: Unilang: the Phonotactics)

Ray:
> In fact /dl/ is not uncommon in French, cf. /dlo/ "water" (de l'eau).
> Ancient Greek certainly had initial /tl/, /dl/ and /thl/ and I'm pretty
> sure these combos occur initially in several modern languages. But I do
> agree they are far less common than combos of non-dental & non-alveolar
> plosives + /l/.  In fact, they seem often to become velar+/l/, cf. Vulgar
> Latin /vEklu/ <-- /wetlu-/ <-- uetulu(m).  In "sub-standard" English one
> may hear 'bottle' promounced /bQkl=/ (tho /bQ?l=/ is now more common).
>
> But the reverse change occasionly happens.  In certain Yorshire dialects,
> apparently, /gl/ --> /dl/ so that e.g. _gloom_ was pronounced [dlu:m] (I
> suspect universal education & mass media has now made such pronunciations
> obsolete  :=(
No -- [dlu:m] is still current in the North. In some sense, though,
gloom > dloom is not the reverse of bottle > bockle, because the latter
form a minimal pair whereas the former do not.

ObConlang: in Livagian, /dl/ is realized as [dJ] (J = tap) and /gl/ as
[gl] and so on for other coronals and dorsals. /bl/ is [bJ] or [bl].
/dr/ and /gr/ are [dR] and [gR] (R = English approximant R). /br/ is
[bR] or [bB] (B = trill).

--And.

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