Re: [tied] Thoughts on the existence of *H1 revisited

On Sat, 22 Sep 2001 23:04:46, "Glen Gordon" <glengordon01@...>
wrote:

>Miguel nitpicks:
>>But ejectives are *not* consonant clusters, they are single segments.
>>[C'] is not the same as [C?], and there are languages where both
>>occur.
>
>I'm fully aware of this. However, for a language without ejectives,
>the formation of consonant clusters like *C? is the first step to
>forming them in the first place!! (??)

I think "??". I know of no language where ejectives arose from
clusters of stop+/?/. It might happen, I suppose, in some cases, but
I don't think this can be a major source of the ejectives in languages
that have them. Ejectives are as far as I know invariably found in
languages that also have voiceless aspirates, and for good reason: a
phonetic opposition [+aspirated] ~ [-aspirated] is equivalent to
[-ejective] ~ [+ejective].