Preglottalised Nasals (was: PIE -*C-presents)

From: Richard Wordingham
Message: 54102
Date: 2008-02-24

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Patrick Ryan" <proto-language@...>
wrote:
>
> The stress-accent is a big hint here.
>
> It is, of course, not impossible that if
>...
> 10) About as likely as *?m/*m? is unlikely as a phoneme.

From the general tenor, I presume 'unlikely' is an error for 'likely'.

Preglottalised nasal phonemes are far from unknown. A European
example can be found in the Saami dialect of Guovdageaidnu (
http://www.ling.ohio-state.edu/~odden/Saami.pdf , esp. p6). They are
also to be found in SE Asian languages, such as Khmu (Austro-Asiatic)
and Sui (Tai-Kadai). They appear to be prone to variation with
preglottalised voiced consonants.

Richard.