Re: Yasaro phonology

Quoting Herman Miller <hmiller@...>:


> Here's the basic phoneme inventory:
>
> bilab. dent.  alv.   retro. palat. velar       vowels
> p      th     t             c      k           i iñ  u
> m      nh     n             nj     ng          e eñ      o
> v             s      r      j      x                 a
>         l
>
> A couple of odd things about this: /s/ and /x/ (in stressed syllables)
> are voiceless while the other fricatives are voiced. Probably /l/ is
> derived from (or merged with) /D/; is that a reasonable sound change? As
> usual in Zireen languages, /r/ represents [z`]; if there were retroflex
> stops or nasals they must have merged with other sounds. Would it be
> more likely for retroflex sounds to merge with alveolar or palatal? Is
> it strange to have [z`] as the only retroflex sound in the language?
FWIW, in much of southern Sweden, retroflex sounds have merged with dentals. Eg,
 _sport_ [spOt`] becomes homophonous with _spott_ [spOt_d].

                                                           Andreas