Re: YACL: Thylean (alternate-history)

Oskar Gudlaugsson wrote:
>
>>> - Consonants
>>>
>>> /p t k/
>>> /B D G/
>>> /l m n N r/
>>> /s S f/
>>> /w j/
>>>
>>
>>Interesting, no voiced stops, no voiceless /P T x/, /f/ but /B/. I'm
>wondering
>>about the stability of such a distribution. What do you all think?
>
>You're right. I've rethought this:
>
>/p t k/
>/v D G/
>/l m n N r/
>/f T s S x/
>/j/
>
>As you noted below, /T/ and /x/ should also be phonemes, so they're
>included. I decided that /B/ appeared only in transition, but then shifted
>to pair with /f/. /w/ subsequently merged with /v/, as it has widely done
>in Spanish AFAIK.
Actually, some descriptions of Spanish regard <v> and <b> to be orthographic
representations of the single phoneme /B/. In these descriptions, <d> and <g>
are also phonemically /D/ and /G/. So you might perhaps want to consider
having the same development where */b/ and */w/ merged into /B/?

>>> Allophones:
>>>
>>> /n/ is [N] before velars /k G/
>>> /G/ is [j] before front vowels /i e/
>>
>>Interesting.
>>
>>> /k/ is [hj] (unvoiced semivowel) before /i e/
>>
>>This one too, quite unusual :) .
>
>Kind of unusual, yes. Many Norwegian dialects and undoubtedly some Swedish
>ones have the reflexes [j] and [j] (correct SAMPA?) from palatalized
>velars. I wonder why it's not more common, it seems like a logical
>development.
You could also go all the way. In Danish, many occurences of syllable final
[j] are surface forms of /g/ after front vowels. Similarly, many occurences
of syllable-final [w] are surface forms of /g/ after back vowels. If you go
back a few generations, these /g/'s were all /G/ in syllable-final position.
Dialects even differ in pronounciations because of differing vowels, e.g.:

     UNDERLYING   EASTERN   WESTERN   GLOSS
     /dag/        [dEj]     [dAw]     "day"
     /lag/        [lEj]     [lAw]     "layer"
     /fag/        [fEj]     [fAw]     "subject, field, trade"

Going all the way also seems more likely to me since Thylean /G/ is more
lenited than /k/ in the first place.

-kristian- 8)