Consonant clusters (was Citation forms of words, and the cynicism required to study Georgian)

S'mae,
Ysgrifennodd Thomas R. Wier:
> > > We haven't gotten that far yet, but I believe that "gv-" and "m-"
> > > are indirect object agreement markers on the verb. Don't know
> > > how they work, though.
> >
> > They might be, and they might not. In that puzzle, they seemed to
> > come out as pronominal prefixes, but that can't imply anything, for
> > sure - they might be such markers for all what it's worth :-)
> >
> > I just meant how un-vocalic Georgian is! My languages (all that
> > I've tried) seemed to tend to C(S)V(C) structure, I guess it just
> > appeals to my lámatyávë :-)
>
> Yeah, that's certainly an odd feature about Georgian.  My professor
> likes to say that given the choice of making a consonant cluster of
> two and one of, say, six consonants, the native Georgian speaker will
> instinctively choose the latter, because, of course, that's much
> easier to pronounce. :P
*gigglabyte* :-) (c) Czhang :-)

The most extreme example in Georgian I've ever come across is "gwprckwnis"
((s)he peels us).

> (Somehow, the more extreme examples in English phonology -- "two
> sixths [t_hu: sIksTs]" -- never seem to come up in these discussions.)
Indeed. The same word you cite is the one I try avoiding in English :-)

In Russian, the longest consonant cluster I'm aware of consists of five
consonants in a row: kontrprimer (counterexample).

Hwyl,
Pavel

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