Re: Historical realism and prenasalized stops

Quoth David Peterson:

> Josh wrote:
>
> <<1. *d > nd
> 2. *t > d
> 3. *d > D / V_V
> 4. *t_h > t
> 5. *nd > d / _V{stressed}>>
>
> I would've expected *t > t_h, and *d > t, not the other way around, but I
> can't speak for universals.
Well, now...lenition tends to move the other way, no? Intervocalic voiceless
stops become voiced in too many languages to count (the sonority hierarchy
and all... pp > p > b > B > v/w). It could probably be explained as not
stopping voicing quickly enough after a previous voiced sound, so that it
begins to merge into the stop (especially since it's unaspirated and
therefore voicing begins so soon after its release anyway). However, I'm
suddenly inspired, this would clearly not happen after a *voiceless*
consonant, so perhaps

[st] > [st]
but
[st_h] > [sT]

I'm not sure where my loss of aspiration comes from (natlang examples are
momentarily escaping me. I'll keep searching), but my theory is that, once
intervocalic voiced stops fricated, there were only two stop types left, one
voiced prenasalized and the other voiceless aspirated--which leaves a *lot*
of room between on the VOT timeline. It seems reasonable for [t_h] to move
toward the middle in these circumstances, you think?

> I actually just started a language
> with prenasalized stops, and it usually causes the previous vowel to become
> nasal, so they rarely show up as an actual prenasalized stop (only in initial
> position).
This is a good point for me as well, actually--it would help to explain the
nasal's disappearance before stressed vowels in Tjaren. Since the syllable
before the stress is typically shorter, and nasalization tends to be
associated with length, it certainly makes sense that the nasalization would
drop out in these ultra-short syllables.

> Also, are these changes ordered?   In other words, you have: /ve.'dai/ and
> /'a.ve.ndu/.   The /d/ in /ve.'dai/ is historically a prenasalized stop, so
> is it realized as [d] or [D], since it's between two vowels?
They are indeed ordered as numbered--so "vedái" is [vE.'daj] and "ávendu" is
['a.vE.ndu].

How else do prenasalized consonants react in the language you're working on?
I've never even considered this issue before, so I could use some
inspiration. :)


Ána vien,
   Josh

----------
Josh Brandt-Young <vionau@...>
"After the tempest I behold, once more, the weasel."
(Mispronunciation of Ancient Greek)

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