Re: sound change question

> I'm trying to evolve this series of fricatives: (where all voiced
> are
> followed by ^h)
> f v T D s z S Z s` z` s\ z\ C J h
> and I'm wondering how four of those can plausibly come out of
> effectively
> nowhere.  I'm thinking that neighboring stops will be major players
> here,
> but I can't for the life of me work out how.
First question:  do you intend to keep all of the original stops?  If
not, you can have loads of fun turning them into various fricatives, and
that'll be your answer right there.  If you do want to keep the stops,
things get a little more difficult.

I would recommend using the neighboring vowels to creat the sound shifts.
 For example, perhaps /s z/ is palatalized before a high vowel, giving
/s\  z\ /.  LIkewise, /S Z/ might become /C J/ before a back vowel, or
any number of other things.  My phonetics is failing me right now, so I'm
not exactly sure what would be a typical sound change, but I'm sure you
can change something.  Then, if you want to make the differences
phonemic, you'll have to do something to change the vowels so that the
sounds are actually contrastive.


Jesse S. Bangs     Pelíran
jaspax@ juno.com
"We couldn't all be cowboys
Some of us are clowns" --Counting Crows