Re: OT: Mismatched phonologies / accents

Peter Collier skrev:
> Appologies to those of you who will get two copies of
> this message.
>
> I have the following initial phoneme inventory for
> consonants:
>
> /  p      t     k    /
> /  p\ B   T D   x G  /
> /         s z        /
> /  m      n          /
> /  w      l      j   /
> /         r          /
>
> I need to try and hammer a Gallo-Romance based
> language into that shape, and there are a few Romance
> phonemes I'm struggling to fit.
>
> If a speaker only has the above phonemes readily
> available, do you think the following approximate
> pronunciations are likely?
>
> /S/  > /T/
> /Z/ > /D/
> /ts/ > /s/
> /dz/ > /z/
> /tS/ > /x/
> /dZ/ > /G/
>
> Or do you think any of the sounds might be distinctive
> enough to the speakers's ears, and easy enough to
> accurately 'mimic', that a couple of new phonemes
> might be added to the inventory (e.g. /S/, /Z/)?
>
> Any thoughts/alternative suggestions greatly received!
If the language having the inventory is some kind of pre-
Old High German I'd expect /s/ to be apical [s_a] (like
in modern Spanish and Greek), and /z/ not to exist[^1]
and thus:

/ts/ > /T/
/dz/ > /D/
/S/ > /x/
/Z/ > /j/ or /G/
/tS/ > /S/ > /x/ or > /tj/ > /tt/ (/t/ word initially)
/dZ/ > /Z/ > /j/ or /G/ or /dj/ > /dd/d/

BTW I'd expect Latin /k/ before /e, i/ to become /ts/dz/
so that /tS/ would rarely arise -- perhaps only from /kj/,
and I do regard /j/ as the most likely outcome of both
/Z/ and /dZ/.  Some think VL /g;/ actually first went to
/j/ everywhere!



/BP 8^)>
--
Benct Philip Jonsson -- melroch atte melroch dotte se
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
   "C'est en vain que nos Josués littéraires crient
   à la langue de s'arrêter; les langues ni le soleil
   ne s'arrêtent plus. Le jour où elles se *fixent*,
   c'est qu'elles meurent."           (Victor Hugo)

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