Re: Viko Notes
| From: | Marcus Smith <smithma@...> |
|---|
| Date: | Tuesday, June 25, 2002, 22:35 |
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On Tue, 25 Jun 2002, David Peterson wrote:
> In a message dated 06/24/02 11:16:38 PM, steven@OLYWA.NET writes:
>
> << 3. "v" without "f"? Well, there's no law against that. It seems a
> bit
>
> odd, but I'll defer
>
> to linguists' opinions about whether it happens in any natural language. >>
>
> Any? I think it's quite common. Hawaiian comes to mind. I also want to
> say Turkish, but I'm not sure...
We can add the American Indian language Pima to that: it has /v/ but not
/f/. The reason in this case is hisotrical. Originally the /v/ was /w/,
but recently (last couple hundred years perhaps?) there was a change /w/
-> /v/ unless adjacent to a bilabial segment (/u/, /o/, /p/). Phonetic [f]
appears word finally or in clusters with /h/, where devoicing regularly
occurs.
Marcus