Re: Sound changes - whither retroflex sounds and glottal stop?

On Sat, 22 Jul 2006 01:31:31 -0400, Eric Christopherson
<rakko@...> wrote:

> Right now, I've tentatively made [retroflexes] develop into something
> roughly palatal - either fully palatal or palatalized alveolar or
> alveolar + /j/.  This doesn't feel very realistic to me, though.  I
> suppose they could easily become alveolar, but that doesn't satisfy me
> since I don't want them to merge with the existing alveolars.
Have you thought about a chain shift, i.e. moving the alveolars out of the
way first...
/t/ -> /tS/
/t/ -> /t_j/
/t/ -> /t_m/
/t/ -> /t_d/
...and then /t`/ -> /t/

Plausibly, you could fricativize the alveolars, instead. Maybe...
/t`/ -> /t/ -> /s/ -> /h/ (or /S/)

Another alternative is anti-Scandinaviation: /t`/ -> /r\t/

> As for glottal stop, I know it can drop out completely, and combine with
> other consonants to form glottalized ones, and I think in modern Nahuatl
> at least it comes out as /h/.  I have an intuition that it might become
> /N/, but that might be a stretch.
The change /?/ -> /N/ I think is documented in Nenets (or a related
natlang?)





Paul