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Re: [conculture] Re: The things one finds

From:Nik Taylor <fortytwo@...>
Date:Saturday, July 24, 1999, 19:11
Barry Garcia wrote:
> I did however keep the changes consistent with sounds that are produced > from the same area of the mouth. Another question is, is it natural for > say /g/ to become /k/ and then /k/ to become /g/?
Unless there's an intermediate change, no. One way could be: /g/ --> /G/ /k/ --> /g/ /G/ --> /x/ /x/ --> /k/ (however, that last change isn't very likely, I think) If /g/ were to become /k/, with a /k/ already existing, then they'd simply merge, that is, they'd be the same phoneme. Also, no reason to keep them in the same part of the mouth. In Spanish, the old phoneme /S/ became /x/. In some dialects of English, /t/ becomes /?/ between vowels. Before front vowel, it's not uncommon for sounds to be palatized, for instance (from the history of Spanish), before front vowels: /k/ --> /k_j/ --> /ts/ --> /T/ or /s/ (depending on dialect) and /g/ --> /g_j/ --> /dZ/ --> /Z/ --> /S/ --> /x/ -- "[H]e axed after eggys: And the goode wyf answerde, that she coude not speke no Frenshe ... And then at last a nother sayd that he woulde haue hadde eyren: then the goode wyf sayd that she vnderstood hym wel." -- William Caxton http://members.tripod.com/~Nik_Taylor/Conlang/W.html http://members.tripod.com/~Nik_Taylor/Books.html ICQ: 18656696 AIM Screen-Name: NikTailor