Re: Goblin phonology

andrew wrote:

> What's interested me is no semi-vowels w
> or y except as offglides (ai and au), or if no w then no v either.  Would
> such omissions be normal in a natural language?  Any suggestions or
> examples?
Sure it's normal!  To give a conlang rather than a natlang example,
Tokana has both of the features you mention.  Tokana lacks /v/
(although /f/ is found in a few words).  The approximants [w]
and [j] are not phonemic, although they do exist as allophonic
variants of /u/ and /i/:  A word like "iona" could be pronounced
[iona], but is usually pronounced [jona] (/i/ and /u/ become glides
when adjacent to another vowel).  Even when they're pronounced
as glides, though, the phonology treats them as vowels.  For
example, the reflexive prefix has two forms, "uma-" before
consonants and "umak-" before vowels; it is the latter form
which is used with words like "iona":  "umakiona" [umakjona].

Matt.