Re: Fun with prenasalized stops.txt

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "tgpedersen" <tgpedersen@...> wrote:

>
> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "C. Darwin Goranson"
> <cdog_squirrel@> wrote:
> >
> > I like this idea of prenasalization. The m/w thing seems a nice
> > touch, and your theory has some interesting parts ot it, but I do
> > have a few questions about it.
> > 1) How would the /b/ turn into a /w/ around an /m/? Where would the
> > lip-rounding come from?

The lip-rounding is there in /b/. Lenited /m/ has become [w] in
Irish, so there is no problem there. One example well on the way to
at least apparently developing /mb/ > /w/ is Rennellese. It's got as
far as [B].

> > 3) Do we know of any other languages in the general region of the
> > Urheimat (that is, from Turkey to the Caspian to the Volga, possibly
> > to the Danube near the Black Sea) that might have used
> > prenasalization?

Albanian has clusters of nasal plus stop - they're no more exotic than
'presigmatised stops'.

Richard.