Re: YACQ: Plausibility of a sound change

"Tommaso R. Donnarumma" wrote:
> The passage from glottidalized to voiced is, I think, rather simple:
> if the speaker releases the glottal occlusion prematurely, then you
> have a (partially) voiced consonant.  I believe that this kind of
> anticipatory phaenomena is rather common...
I'm not sure about that particular change, but, it's not uncommon for
ejectives and implosives to alternate as allophones, or by place, e.g.,
/b'/ but /t'/ and /k'/.  So, if you decided to keep the ejectives, you
could have implosives as an allophone, perhaps in free variation, or
perhaps in certain positions (maybe adjacent to another voiced sound?),
and eventually, the implosive allophone generalized.

An implosive, if you don't know, is produced by bringing the glottis
*downward* while open, ideally, there should be no movement of air from
the lungs, but the rapid downward movement of the larynx causes air to
move past the vocal folds creating voice.  They have a very "hollow"
sound, and, as they are already voiced, are highly likely to simply
become voiced.  In some dialects of Uatakassí, geminated voiced stops
became implosives, while geminate voiceless stops became ejectives.

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