Re: [tied] IS's "regular roots"

It has been estimated that /s/ is found in ca. 83% of human languages (which makes it one of the most frequently occurring segment types) and in 88.5% of all languages that have ANY fricatives (I suspect, though I haven't checked, that the remaining 11,5% have only /h/, like Hawaiian). I'll look for information on languages that have affricates but no fricatives (if such languages exist at all).

Piotr

----- Original Message -----
From: Miguel Carrasquer Vidal

To: cybalist@yahoogroups.com

Sent: Sunday, January 28, 2001 4:36 PM

Subject: Re: [tied] IS's "regular roots"

The fact that I can't think of many language with, say, /c/ but no /s/, may be rather due to the fact that there are so few languages that lack /s/.