Quoting Ray Brown <ray.brown@...>:
> I can think of languages that have /s/ but no other fricatives; but I
> cannot think of any with just /T/. However, I don't see why at some stage
> a lonely [s] could not have changed to [T] (maybe a monarch or ruler had a
> lisp, and courtiers/followers/sycophants copied him/her and then it became
> a mark of 'polite speech' and so eventually spread to all layers of
> society) - in fact I would not be unduly surprised if a language were
> found with /T/ as its only fricative.
Is there a reason for /s/ being the typical choice of a lone fric? I can't think
of any single-fric language where the only fric is anything else than /s/.
Andreas