Robert Blust ("Patterns of sound change in
the Austronesian languages". In: Philip Baldi [ed.]. 1990. _Linguistic Change
and Reconstruction Methodology_. Berlin/NY: Mouton de Gruyter. 231-267) cites a
number of interesting AN developments involving nasality (being a vast family
with a relatively well-reconstructed history, AN is an excellent testing ground
for would-be "diachronic universals"). Here are a handful of
examples:
"In Palauan, a velar nasal appears before
the reflex of all Proto-Malayo-Polynesian initial vowels (*anak > {ng}alek
'child', *ikan > {ng}ikel 'fish, *uRat > {ng}urd 'vein, artery'). The
suggestion that these developments are due to the fossilization of old
grammatical markers is superficially attractive, but since the epenthetic
consonant is associated with all grammatical classes in both languages there
appears to be little reason to consider it a product of anything but
phonological change" (p. 242).
In a number of AN languages there is a
merger of word-final *l and *n and/or of final voiced stops with the homorganic
nasals (*b and *m, etc.), the result being always a nasal consonant (p.
247).
There is a curious phenomenon called
"rhinoglottophilia" (Matisoff 1975), consisting in a correlation between glottal
or pharyngeal activity and the position of the velum (note the characteristic
nasalisation of uh-huh-like grunts). There are several examples of nasality
conditioned by "laryngeals" in AN (e.g. in Rennellese). In Seimat (western
Admiralty Islands) old *p and *d fell together as /h/, but may still be
distinguished by the nasalisation o the following vowel, appearing only after
/h/ < *d, e.g. *puaq > hua 'fruit', but *dua > hu~a 'two (in counting
trees)' (p. 249). Presumably nasalisation appeared and became lexicalised at a
time when the lenited reflex of *p was still /f/ or the like.
Cf. also:
Piotr
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Tuesday, July 09, 2002 12:14 AM
Subject: Re: [phoNet] Nasals from Non-nasals
Spontaneous nasalisation and the
development of nasals from non-nasals are perfectly possible, though not very
common. I'll post some examples shortly.