--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Patrick Ryan" <proto-language@...>
wrote:
> > There is no reason to assume that the Ethiopian articulation is
original.
> > Patrick
> > =========
> > Most experts in this field believe so.
> > And I agree with these experts.
> >
> > The main obvious reason is :
> > Glottalized can become emphatic, not the reverse.
> > And glottalized can be become voiced,
> > the reverse is rarer but possible.
> >
> > Arnaud
> > =========
> That is a straw man.
> Start with retroflex articulation. Retroflex can be glottalized and and
> later voiced --- or not.
What is a retroflex non-coronal consonant?
Bomhard has a nice assembly of evidence for glottalisation being more
primitive in 'Reconstructing Proto-Nostratic: Comparative Phonology,
Morphology and Vocabulary', which he was distributing last year. Have
you read it?
Just looking at the cognates (I trust) in extant languages we have:
1. Neo-Aramaic dialects have glottalised consonants.
2. South Arabian languages have glottalised consonants
3. Ethipoian Semitic languages (I presume he excludes Arabic!) have
glottalised consonants
4. Berber languages have pharyngealisation, as in Arabic
5. Chadic has a mixture of implosive and ejective consonants - the
pattern being implosive at the front and ejective at the back
6. Cushitic and Omotic show a similar picture to Chadic, though a few
languages have retroflex coronals.
A post-velar cosonant often appears for the emphatic velar.
Historically, we can denote dissimilation of emphatics, as in Geers'
Law in Akkadian. This speaks for ejectiveness. Does not
pharyngealisation tend to be associated with spreading, rather than
with disassociation? (I gather that pharyngealisation is a word
rather then consonant property in some dialsects of Arabic.)
Is there any reason why pharyngealised labials should be rare?
Richard.