Re: How to minimize "words" (was "Re: isolating conlangs")

On Feb 24, 2007, at 7:24 PM, Eric Christopherson wrote:
> As I understand it, Gaelic has sequences of fricative+stop which (I
> think) can be considered as single units, at least
> orthographically; I am not sure about whether they are so
> phonologically or phonetically. They are homorganic, though, so
> [st] could occur, but not [sp].
I think I was wrong. I thought Gaelic had [st] as a unit, but now
that I have checked, it looks like the only "pre-fricativized" sound
combination is [xk], and as far as I can tell only in Scottish
Gaelic. In that language, the fortis stops are aspirated, and the
aspiration surfaces medially and finally as pre-aspiration in the
case of /p_h/ and /t_h/, but pre-fricativization in the case of /k_h/.

(I still *seem* to recall reading somewhere that /t_h/ was sometimes
[st], but I can't seem to find that anywhere!)