Re: Would this consonant distribution be realistic?

Steven Williams wrote:
> Please note the loss of the voicing contrast between
> the labial stops - historically, [b] shifted to [v].
> Is it realistic to have the only voicing contrast in
> fricatives to be held in the labials, rather than the
> alveolars? Does this violate any universals that I
> should worry about, or should I simply not worry about
> universals and just have a merry old time with my
> beautifully asymmetrical phonetic chart?
Well, the fact that you have /p/ without /b/ is very odd.  If there's a
voiced stop missing, it will most likely be further back in the mouth,
e.g., /k/ without /g/, while a missing voiceless stop is likely to be
labial, thus having /b/ but not /p/.

Altho, I suppose that an earlier stage could've lost both /p/ and /b/,
and then later borrowings from another language that had only voiceless
stops re-introduced /p/ without /b/.

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