Theiling Online    Sitemap    Conlang Mailing List HQ   

Re: Japanese phonemes (was Re: The Monovocalic PIE Myth (wasGermans have no /w/, ...))

From:Andreas Johansson <andjo@...>
Date:Saturday, June 12, 2004, 16:00
Quoting John Cowan <cowan@...>:

> Nik Taylor scripsit: > > > For /wj/? Both are glides, sequences of two glides are very rare in > > world languages. For that matter, sequences of consonants with equal > > sonority are banned in a great many languages. Tho some languages will > > allow clusters like /pt/ or /sf/ or /lr/, it's pretty rare. > > My phavorite phonotactic restriction: Classical Greek (I don't know > about modern Greek) doesn't tolerate /sl/ or /sn/, but does favor > /skl/ and /skn/. The Romans weren't so good at these, which is > why the god of healing, Asklepios, was Aesculapius to them.
/skn/? Can't offhand think of any Greeky word with that cluster; could you give me an example? Do the vowel-changes, BTW, come with an explanation? I've always found it kind of neat that while /pl pr tr kl kr/ are all over the place in the Germanic languages, **/tl/ doesn't turn up. Andreas