/Z/ etc. (and proto-hadwan)

----- Original Message -----
From: "Andreas Johansson" <and_yo@...>
> >     Just so as to say something (haven't in awhile), [Z] is my favorite
> >sound, period.  No other sound I've ever heard can compare to [Z].  I
lull
> >myself to sleep with [Z].  If there's a better sound, it doesn't come out
> >of
> >a human mouth, says I.
>
> You'd like Tairezazh then! /Z/, romanized as {zh} in email*, is the past
> participle ending (tho' the Tairezazh past participle is more sparingly
used
> than the English one), and a very frequent adjectival ending. Of course,
/Z/
> and /dZ/ are pretty common phonemes in word roots too.
>
> Tho' personally, I think [S] is perhaps even nicer than [Z]. I like [s]
and
> [z] too, not to mention [dZ], [dz], [tS] and [ts].
Hehe.  Hadwan has lots of those as phonemes, due to massive palatalization
(which hasn't really any plausible explanation).

/s/ (Proto-H *s, < Proto-IE *k' and rarely *t)
/S/ (PH *s^ < PIE *gh' *g' *gh & rarely *d, *dh)
/z/ (borrowings from Greek)
/Z/ (PH *j, < PIE *dh)
/ts/ or /tS/ (PH *c < PIE *t)
/dz/ or /dZ/ (PH *j < PIE *d)[1]

Actually, here's the whole PH inventory as generally reconstructed, just for
the hoodles of it:

        vl fric  vd fric  vl stop  vd stop
    lab   *f       *b
    pal   *s,      *j,      *c       *j
    vel   *x       *Y       *k       *g

    *s  *s^  *r  *m  *l  *n  *w  *y  (*N)?

    *i(:)    *u(:)    m=    l=
    *e(:) *ø *o(:)    n=    r=
          *a(:)

(where these are not necessarily IPA-valued symbols.  *f is written phi, *b
is beta, *s, is s-cedilla, *j, is curly-tailed dotless j, *j is dotless j,
*Y is gamma, *s^ is s-caron, *N is eng, *ø is o-slash)

I expect this would be somewhat marked... A series of palatals and no
dentals?  The changes don't appear to be systemized either, e.g. *bh *dh
*g'h *gh *gwh > *b *j, *s^ *g *g--I think actually there is a current
opinion that says the sound spelled *s^ probably originally was voiced but
devoiced in both Hadwan and its Asian cognate languages.

In a marginally related note, I think I've actually learned how to pronounce
palatal stops properly, from watching the movie "Life is Beautiful" and
rather blatantly mispronouncing <principesa>...

    *Muke
[1] Actually the greater part of Hadwan speakers still have simple palatal
stops here, but they don't survive in the Achaian dialect I'm working on.