Re: Pesky phonology questions

Peter Clark wrote:


>        I've been merrily working on Proto-Enamyn's mutation system, and
after a
>couple of tweaks, think that I have something quite unique, yet still
>perfectly plausible. One thing continues to bother me, however: initial
>vowels.
>        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/ -> ?
>
>        One possibility is to create diphthongs. But this would not produce
a regular
>pattern at all. Another would be to insert a glottal stop (/a ?ena/, but
what
>could a glottal stop eventually change to? Or maybe a glide (/a jena/)?
What
>would likely be inserted between two vowels?
Hiatus-avoidance features I'm familiar with:
1.  Glides homorganic with either the 1st or 2nd vowel-- usually [j] for
front V, [w] for back, [?] or [h] for like V, and low vowels in particular
[a]. OTOH, you could _dissimilate_-- [j] for back, [w] for front etc etc. ad
libitum.  It could also be that initial V have a non-phonemic glide onset
/e.../ = [je...] etc.   These onsets could then undergo mutation. (I don't
recall the details of your system, but something like /a ena/ > [a Zena]???)
2. [N] everywhere is a possibility too.
3. Glottal stop in all cases (implies that V-initial words have automatic
[?] onset)-- now if you make that [?] phonemic, perhaps it could participate
in the mutation system, but I'm also unsure what it would mutate to--
probably [h] and/or [N], maybe [q] or the Arabic voiced glottal fricative
(ayin?) ???
4. [w] between like V of any sort.  Odd, yes, but Buginese has it.
5. Any handy consonant, for which you could devise reasons at will.  Basque
IIRC uses [r], though I don't think we know why........