Re: Confusatory

Rakko wrote:
>> [c] seems to be unstable, in any case, and is notoriously liable to become
>> an affricate.
>
>Yes, but why...
My guess is because (in IE languages anyway) we haven't got so much in the way
of *native* palatal stops--when we get them, they're palatal*ized*.

[cj] (or such) by itself is probably unstabler than regular [c].  [cj] is
harder to pronounce, for me anyway, so I can imagine it'd be more likely to
break down.   You see a similar thing in English with the palatalization of
/t/ and /d/ before 'American /r/'...

But then, I don't know.  In langs with palatals have they got the affricating
tendency?  Hungarian?

>> >Related topic: Does anyone know why /c/ and /j\/ [...]
>> >seem to become affricates so frequently, where other stops don't?
>>
>> But what other stops would go that way?  (I suppose aspirated /p/ became
>> /pf/ in High German.)
>
>Yeah, I was thinking of German. Presumably, there are other languages where
>plain stops went to affricates across the board, instead of just in one
>point of articulation.
Possibly, but I think that'd be unlikely unless a new set of plain stops
arised.. arose somehow to take their place.   Hmm...

     *Muke!

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