Re: New Language - Altsag Venchet

En réponse à Andreas Johansson <and_yo@...>:

> >
> >Consonants
> >------------
> >stops: b, d, t, g, k, q
> >approximants: r, l, y
> >nasals: m, n, ng
> >fricatives: v, s, z, sh, zh, kh, gh
> >affricates: ts, j, ch
>
> This inventory seems a bit unsymmetric. Nothing necessarily wrong with
> that,
> but are there any intrafictional reasons for this? I mean, there are
> for
> instance no voiceless labials, even though based on analogy with the
> dentals/alveolars and the velars one'd expect *p and *f to turn up.
The absence of /p/ is quite common. See Classical Arabic for instance. But it's
true that I'd expect then /f/ to be there, unless there has been a series of
changes /p/ -> /f/ -> /v/ through time.

  If "n" is
> followed
> >by "g", it assimilates into "ngk".
> >
>
> That seems pretty weird. And the correct term in this instance is
> "dissimilation", since "k" is less similar to "n" (or "ng") than is
> "g",
> since "k" is unlike both "g" and the nasals is voiceless. Not
> impossible,
> but pretty high on the weirdity scale.
>
Actually, it is both assimilation and dissimilation, since we have
here /n/+/g/ -> [Nk]. And actually, I don't see what's weird in that at all. We
would have /n/ + /g/ -> /Ng/ and then the g dissimilated in voice in order to
stay heard, or else it would have had the tendency to disappear. It's quite a
normal behaviour I think.

Christophe.

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