Re: NEW LANG: Telek

Jim Grossmann wrote:
> Maybe I'm getting ahead of things, but why make an exception of the glottal
> stop?
I can't speak for Marcus Smith, but it could be simply because of the
origin of gemination.  For instance, in a northern dialect of Watakassí
that I'm working on, all consonants may be geminate or non-geminate,
except for /N/, which can *only* be geminate.  The reason is that when
gemination developed, there was no /N/.  /N/ was later derived from
/ng/.  What happened is that sequences of nasal followed by stop became
geminate nasals, so /mb/ --> /m:/, /nd/ --> /n:/, /ng/ ([Ng]) -> /N:/
(earlier, there was a rule of voicing assimilation, so that /mp/, /nt/,
and /nk/ became /mb/, /nd/, /ng/).

> Also, how do you prolong a flap?  (By making it a trill?   That would work.)
That's how Spanish does it with r/rr.

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