Re: [p]>[m]?

Hi!

Joseph B. writes:
> Given a pre-bronze people whose L1 contains [m] as the only bilabial but is
> rich in aspirated & non-aspirated dentals, velars, and uvulars: how would
> they most likely hear and reproduce initial [p] & [p_h] and terminal [p_}]
> on first encountering a foreign language with all 3? Would [p] & [p_h]
> collapse to [m]? and [p_}] to [?]?
I think final [p_}] would quite probably become [m] as it is very
close.  One distinction between [p] and [m] is the release and when
it's missing, I have no doubts [m] could be perceived as [m].  Try
pronouncing final [p_}] vs. final [m_0] -- they are almost
indistinguishable.

As to initial [p] and [p_h], I think it would not be infeasible either
to collapse into [m], but I could also imagine them being mimicked by
velars [k] and [k_h].  Switches do happen in natlangs, although I
can't come up with a pure switch (without labial context), but e.g. g
> b, in Rom. and Sard.(some dialects) lingua > limba, by influence of
-u-.

As a side note, Korean borrowed Chinese [v] or [w] as [m],
e.g. 'Taiwan' is /t&man/ in Korean (maybe this is a bit antiquated,
however, and nowadays it is really /taiwan/).

**Henrik

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