Re: Pesky phonology questions

On Fri, 1 Nov 2002, Peter Clark wrote:

>         Enamyn's system 1 mutations evolved as a result of lenition, which means that
> any intervocalic initial consonant mutated. Great. Now, what about the
> vowels? For instance, in Proto-Enamyn, we have the words
>         *lhéwam - "child"
>         *ena - "mouth"
> Now, if we had a word final vowel preceeding those words, it's clear how
> lenition would affect *lhéwam but less so *ena.
>         */a K@wam/ -> */a l@wam/
>         */a ena/ -> ?
Well, you can skip the whole matter, and assume that this phonological
process only happens to consonants. Or, if all your vowels are voiced,
they will be unchanged (if by "lenition" you mean only voicing). In either
case, the result will be the same: /a ena/ -> /a ena/.

If Enamyn cannot have hiatus (two vowels in succession), which I assume
Proto-Enyman had (since */a ena/ has been reconstructed), you can
institute another kind of phonological process to eliminate that. You can
do as other people have suggested, inserting an on-glide, or a consonant
[N].

What I haven't seen among the other answers is the possibility of complete
assimilation. If the phonological system of Enamyn allows long vowels, you
can let */a ena/ -> /a:na/ or /e:na/.

Hope this helps.

--
Arnt Richard Johansen                          http://people.fix.no/arj/
Vacuum cleaners suck. Kings rule. Ice is cool.