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Re: Questions on Proto-Indo-European

From:Nik Taylor <yonjuuni@...>
Date:Sunday, January 12, 2003, 16:47
Tristan wrote:
> Actually, if I'm not mistaken, and I quite possibly am, English /t/ and > /d/ often surface as [t_h] and [d] or [t], and in the situations where > /t/ would be [t_h], an English speaker may well hear [t] as /d/. Err... > so that 'small breath' is actually relevant to English speakers too, > sometimes moreso then whether there's breath or not.
This is true. If you say [tIn], most Anglophones will hear that as "din", not "tin". However, [t] and [d] do contrast syllable-finally, as in [lIt] vs. [lI:d], altho, to be fair, there's also lengthening involved, and most Anglophones would probably hear [lI:t] as "lid" or [lId] as "lit". In one future English project of mine, I had s-consonant clusters lose the /s/, creating a phonemic distinction between unaspirated and aspirated stops, so that, for example, where Modern English has only a /k/-/g/ distinction, Future English had /k_h/-/k/-/g/ as in /k_hIl/ (kill), /kIl/ (skill), /gIl/ (gill). -- "There's no such thing as 'cool'. Everyone's just a big dork or nerd, you just have to find people who are dorky the same way you are." - overheard ICQ: 18656696 AIM Screen-Name: NikTaylor42