Re: Another Urianian phonology problem.

>> I think your step-by-step chronology could most likely go like this:
>> kw) gw) gwh)) > cw) J\w) J\wh)) (labiovelars spontaneously palatalize)
>> gh) J\hw)) > G j\w) > x Cw) (voiced aspirates spirantize, then
>> devoice)
>> x > h (lenition of the least marked dorsal fricativ)
>> Cw) > x / w (the labiopalatal fricativ changes to something less
>> marked)
>> cw) J\w) > cCw)) J\j\w)) > Cw) j\w)  (labiopalatal stops spirantize)
>> Cw) j\w) > C j (labiality of palatals finally lost)
>
>Thanks for your comments, John V. Much appreciated.
You're welcome :)

>I think it's a good idea to let the labiovelar stops turn to palatal
>stops before they turn into palatal fricatives, or in this case
>labiopalatal stops and fricatives. Your scheme seems well worked out
>and I can follow most of it, except that don't know what you are
>doing with all those right parantheses.
Z-SAMPA for tie bar, idiolectally extended for phonation and secondary
articulation diacritics. (I find the proper SAMPA underscore disruptiv.)


>But I can't have the former /
>kW/ merging with the /gWh/ in the fourth stage.
Pardon? I don't think anything merges with anything else in there. That's
basically a chain shift with old /x Cw)) cw))/ > new /h x Cw))/.


>What I think happens is not labiopalatalisation, because this would
>tip the velar stops into the palatal as well, wouldn't it? I need the
>velars, because they fit well with my material.
It's a quirky process, but I don't think that necessarily folloes - there's
the hypothesis that the PIE plain velars may have actually been uvulars!
That would leave the labiovelars the more frontal dorsal series, and thus
susceptible for palatalization. (See also: Greek, where they turn to dentals
before front vowels; I suspect this would be a palatalization, affrication,
deaffrication process. Spontaneous palatalization seems like a taller order
tho.)


>I think I do need an
>early loss of labiality after all, and palatalisation to happen in
>the process. The labiality will only leave traces in the following
>phonemes.
Well, now the main problem seems to be, how to plausibly direct them "past"
the plain velars? I don't think labiality and palatality are generally
directly interchangeable. Okay, I seem to recall spontaneous w > j being
attested for some Semitic dialect, but that might be just a question of
backness being the marked property there, and labiality a secondary phonetic
result (i.e. /w/ actually being non-syllabic /u/). Then we'd additionally
need vowel frontness being the unmarked quality, and w > j would be just
loss of the feature [+back].

Actually, maybe that CAN be used here - split the labiovelars to velars + w,
then change w > j, then just do some ordinary palatalization? Except you
probably don't want original /w/ in the way, at least if it doesn't change
to /v/? - or /Z/ or /tK/ or /nd/ or … ;)


>Then the voiced palatal stop can retain the aspiration,
>which pulls its stop back into a velar fricative while the others
>spirantise into palatal fricatives: kW gW gWh > c J\ J\h > C j\ x.
>Just like the velar fricative resulting from the IE /gh/, this one is
>unstable and remains only in the lowlands, while the labiality traces
>are all that remains of the /gWh/ in the highlands. Is this plausible?
OK for the general part, but I'm not sure if it makes sense for the
labiality to linger on in only one of the former labiovelars.


>The result is, for example, including vowel changes, lowland /gWher/
> >> /xar/, highland /gWher/ >> /yr/. I must find another source for
>my 'vyr, vir, or' forms.
Oh, wait, that sort of labiality traces. Could you handle this with a vowel
shift, let's say y > wi > we? This /y/ here needn't coincide with any /y/'s
you might have arising from elsewhere, mind.

Doesn't mix with the w > j route for the other labiovelars, tho.


>This requires the gh > G > x to happen earlier than gWh > J\h > x, or
>else they will merge as well.
>
>> but it might not quite fit what happens to other consonants, like the
>> palato- & plain velars, or the labial & dental voiced aspirates…
>
>Urianian is a centum language and doesn't have a trace of
>palatovelars.
Hmm, that may make the uvular workaround less efficient then, because a
merger of palatals into velars is OK, but a merger of velars into uvulars
goes in the wrong direction of markedness…


>The other voiced aspirates turn into respective fricatives.
Okay, so they all spirantize. Do they remain voiced, however? No, nevermind,
that's a non-issue because voiceless gaps are expected in the front, but
voiced gaps in the back. So even if bh) > v, gh) > x should be acceptable.

On the other hand, isn't Italic currently reconstructed with a voiceless
aspirate stage (as in Greek), not a voiced fricativ stage? which should also
be the expected course here, then. It doesn't matter for gh) > x if it
passes thru kh) or G, but getting a v out of ph) doesn't seem like a quick
job. That is, IF you need it.


>The
>bilabials then develop into labiodentals. These and the plain stops
>as well as some other phonemes suffer some voicing changes that
>constitute another Urianian phonology problem, which I might return
>to later if I may.
>
>LEF
Well, if you can isolate that from this, no need to bring it in here - just
extra confusion, I'd bet.

John Vertical