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Re: Stress and consonants

From:Philip Newton <philip.newton@...>
Date:Wednesday, October 25, 2006, 7:34
On 10/25/06, David J. Peterson <dedalvs@...> wrote:
> Now, I know that I've actually seen a language > where [t] and [s] are in complimentary distribution
Niuean does that, at least historically -- /t/ is [t] before back vowels, [s] before front vowels. However, through loan words, there are now probably two separate phonemes, since there are words with [t] before front vowels and ones with [s] before back vowels. (This sound change was in comparatively recent time, so some older loan words shifted as well; in particular, the word for "tea" (the drink) is [si:] (but spelled |ti|, with or without macron depending on how careful you are with spelling).) AFAIK, there was an affricate in the process; [t] went to [ts] before it ended up at [s] before front vowels. Cheers, -- Philip Newton <philip.newton@...>