Ruki rule, retroflexion and palatalization (was Re: Help Weird Up My Orthography, Sound Changes?)

Hallo!

Henrik Theiling wrote:

> Hi!
>
> Shreyas Sampat <ssampat@...> writes:
>
> [...]
>
> > It might also help to think of Sanskrit's ruki rule - high front
> > vowels occasionally cause Sein' retroflexion.
>
> Hmm, Sanskrit, yes.  I should definitely have a very close look at
> that now that I'm inventing a language with complex sandhi rules...
>
> That high front vowels cause palatalisation seems to be quite common,
> but how about retroflexion?  Do many natlangs do that?  Fricativation
> if /i/ and even /y/ also happens occasionally as we saw just a few
> days ago (Viby Swedisch and Mandarin Chinese).
> But how about retroflexion?  Or was there an intermediate step of
> palatalisation?
AFAIK, the ruki rule in Indo-Aryan involves an intermediate step of
palatalization.  The ruki rule itself applies not only to Indo-Aryan,
but also to Balto-Slavic and Iranian.  Both groups don't have
retroflexes, which in Indo-Aryan are probably due to a Dravidian
substratum.  The change /S/ > /s`/ happens easily.

Greetings,

Jörg.

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