Re: Why Not More Nasals!!!!? (was: Is this a realistic phonology?)
| From: | Nik Taylor <fortytwo@...> |
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| Date: | Tuesday, March 9, 1999, 3:29 |
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Kristian Jensen wrote:
> So if the main
> opposition between stops in Tungusic languages is between voice and
> voiceless, then alas: there IS a language who does have more nasals
> than voiced oral stops, even if the main opposition between stops is
> between voiced and voiceless.
It occurs to me that Spanish provides an example of something that
*could*, theoretically, evolve into that. It already has a nasal at a
POA where there is no stop (palatal, n~). Suppose that, like English,
<ng> evolved into a velar stop, so that <tengo> (I have) would become
/teNo/ (I think it's [tEN.go] in Spanish), then it would have 4 nasals
and 3 voiced stops.