Re: Treatise on consonant clusters

On 5/25/06, John Vertical <johnvertical@...> wrote:
> In ascending order, the sonority hierarchy of consonants goes something like
> this:
>
> --Obstruents (O)--
> P = voiceless plosivs
> B = voiced plosivs (blosivs?)
> F = voiceless fricativs
> V = voiced fricativs (vricativs?)
>
> N = nasals
>
> --Approximants (A)--
> L = liquids
> W = semivowels
>
[snip]
> the name of the German city of Gdansk (lang?) has initial B+B.
"Danzig" in German, "Gdańsk" in Polish; cf. also Russian "gde" = "where?".

> I know of no initial L+L or V+V occurances anywhere.
Modern Greek has V+V, e.g. /vGazo/ "to take out", /GDino/ "to
undress"; these come originally from P+B by fricativisation(?) of the
B and assimilation of the P to V (and metathesis in the first case:
vgazo < *gvazo < *ek-vazo < ek-basso:; the second is gdino < *ek-dino
< ek-dyo:).

> I don't know if S+B occurs anywhere - does anyone else? It seems plausible
> enuff.
What's "S"? You didn't define that. Sibilants?

If so, I think Italian has this in words where Latin dis- turned into
the morpheme s-, e.g. sbandare. (Not sure whether this is [s] or [z],
though.)

Maltese also has |sb|, though this is [zb] through regressive
assimilation, e.g. |sbieħ| "beautiful (pl.)".

Cheers,
--
Philip Newton <philip.newton@...>

Reply