Re: Droppin' Ds

Barry Garcia and others wrote:
>>>>Oh yes, another rule I was thinking of is:
>>>
>>>- nn becomes /Nj/: anno > añgo  /aNjo/  . Of course I have absolutely no
>>>reasoning for that change, it's mostly just a fun sound, I think.
Strange, but not too far from what actually happened.  A slight byway:
_some_ classicists have proposed that Latin had a phonemic /N/, at least
before /n/ as in agnus 'lamb' :: somehow the reason for the palatal in Fr.
agneau, It. agnello.  A similar proposal has been made for Anc. Greek, with
to my mind, equally weak evidence.
>>
>>I've heard Spanish speakers do all sorts of wierd things with nasals
>>(whether they should be in a place or not); so this rule may not be
>>too far out after all!
    I once met several Peruvian students, from Lima, who pronounced all
final nasals as /N/; some other areas, all are /n/-- the odd case is always
the loan 'album', /albuN ~ albun/.  It's disconcerting to hear "eN la casa"
or "cantaN".
>
>There is a girl in my conversational Spanish class who is a native speaker
>(well, she can speak very well, but forgets some. Her family is San
>Salvadorean i believe), pronounces her name as /aNhela/ , where i would
>expect /anhela/.
    Even if pronounced as a fairly smooth English-like /h/, Span. j/ge, gi
is still systematically a velar, so the nasal assim. is to be expected.  In
a case like _San Juan_ the nasal might or might not assimilate depending on
tempo, but there's a word boundary.