/Nkej/ and /Nkaut/

I've said this for years.  In fact, I thought I was
saying /mkej/,  until I recognized it as a swallowed
first syllable.  Also, I rarely found that I
ever said "kay," as you see it reprinted sometimes
in novels.  That first syllable has left its trace.

Curiously,  my husband and  I used to joke about
his abbreviation of "look out!" spoken to his Yorkie.
If the dog was underfoot and Chris needed
to open the refrigerator, he always said /Nkaut!/ .
It was almost as if the /k/ had lost its plosive qualities,
along with the truncation of its first syllable.  This is
probably the same phenomenon as /Nkej/.

Sally Caves
scaves@frontiernet.net


----- Original Message -----
From: Aidan Grey <frterminus@...>
To: <CONLANG@...>
Sent: Saturday, July 21, 2001 8:18 PM
Subject: Re: /Nkej/


>   I've said /N,kei/ for as long as I can remember.
> What really interests me about this phenomena is how
> the /o/ became a syllabic consonant (/N/ being an
> obvious choice as it is homorganic with the following
> velar/glottal).
>
>     Aidan
>
>
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