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Re: Stress and vowel reduction in Lindiga

From:Herman Miller <hmiller@...>
Date:Saturday, May 24, 2008, 2:16
Benct Philip Jonsson wrote:
> On 2008-05-23 Herman Miller wrote: > > i̯-ˈa-kʉ̯-i -> [ˈjaɡɥi] > > > > According to the current phonology description > > (which hasn't been updated on the web page for > > quite a while, so the web page is inaccurate), > > the "k" in "iak‰i" should be voiceless. But if > > the "ʉ̯-" is acting as a voiced consonant, > > like "l" or "r", that would explain the voicing. > > I wouldn't expect semivowels to qualify as > consonants for purposes of consonant voicing > assimilation, but intervocalic voicing of stops > seems as likely if the lang has no phonemic > voiced stops.
Stops in general aren't voiced between vowels, e.g. nako "forest" [ˈnakɔ], not *[ˈnaɡɔ]. The modern language has no phonemic voicing contrast, although I'm considering the possibility that former voiced consonants have merged with the fricatives. Actually there's one anomalous word "ritu" (bat, or a small bat-like flying dragon), pronounced [ˈriːðu] -- which led to the rule that stops remain voiceless after short stressed syllables, but are voiced after long syllables.
> Also I'd expect [j] or [H] to palatalize preceding > velars and coronals, so [jaJ\Hi]. I always digged > the fact that the name of the language Twi is > pronounced [tSHi]!
That seems likely -- I'm sure that in some versions of Lindiga the /k/ was palatalized.