Re: Phoneme diversity: questions

Ad 3: Schrijver's 'Law' PIE */e/ > Latin /a/ after pure velars implies
palatal / velar opposition in a Western IE language

2013/11/19, Joao S. Lopes <josimo70@...>:

> 1) Why some languages, for example, Polynesian, have so few consonants,
> while Caucasian have dozen of them? Could we infer that older Human
> languages have few or many phonemes?
> 2) Is there any study about growing or reduction of phoneme diverstiy along
> the evolution of language? Why and how can phonemes be "created"? A people
> can "add" phonemes to its lanaguage, or additional sounds always came from
> adstratal or superstratal source?
>
> 3) Why it seems that Western IE proto-languages had no palatals?
> 4) Is there any study about distribution of particular phonemes across the
> world? For example, rounded vowels (ö/ü) or uvular R?
>
> Thanks,
>
> Joao S. Lopes
>