Re: Historical realism and prenasalized stops

Josh Brandt-Young wrote:
> > <<1. *d > nd
> > 2. *t > d
> > 3. *d > D / V_V
> > 4. *t_h > t
> > 5. *nd > d / _V{stressed}>>
> >
> > I would've expected *t > t_h, and *d > t, not the other way around, but I
> > can't speak for universals.
> I'm not sure where my loss of aspiration comes from (natlang examples are
> momentarily escaping me. I'll keep searching), but my theory is that, once
> intervocalic voiced stops fricated, there were only two stop types left, one
> voiced prenasalized and the other voiceless aspirated--which leaves a *lot*
> of room between on the VOT timeline. It seems reasonable for [t_h] to move
> toward the middle in these circumstances, you think?
Well, just by making /t/ into /d/, you've eliminated aspiration as a
phonemic feature.  It's especially believable that aspiration would be
lost if neighboring languages lacked aspirated stops.

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