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From: deb5@kimbark.uchicago.edu (Daniel von Brighoff)
Subject: Re: Acquisition of phonemes thfough foreign influences
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References: <43viv3$l6g@medici.trl.oz.au> <446p1a$56m@agate.berkeley.edu> <ludemannDFKMLu.G0A@netcom.com> <44edjp$n5k@bone.think.com>
Date: Sat, 30 Sep 1995 15:18:12 GMT
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In article <44edjp$n5k@bone.think.com>, Daan Sandee <sandee@think.com> wrote:
>In article <ludemannDFKMLu.G0A@netcom.com> ludemann@netcom.com (Peter Ludemann) writes:
[some deleted]
>>Languages have rules about where phonemes can appear in words (not
>>just in syllables) ... one good example is the "vowel harmony" in
>>Altaic langauges (I suspect that English has its own positioning and
>>stress combination rules).

>That's all very well, but why has English that particular problem with
>initial consonant clusters ? Greek words with ps-, pn-, or x-, and
>Slavic words with ts- pose no difficulties to the French, the Germans,
>or the Dutch, and yet those sounds do not occur in their native languages
>(with the exception of ts- in German.) 

I think you've partly answered your own question.  ps- may not be a part
of the "native" German phonotactical system, but initial [ts] is.  Similarly,
the presence of kn- makes it easier to pronounce other initial stop + nasal
stop clusters, like pn-.  Admittedly, this doesn't explain why the French
and Dutch generally employ initial [ts], but it's worth noting that a) un-
like the other clusters listed, this one is homoorganic and b) in many
phonological systems, it is analysed as a single phoneme and not a cluster.
Both these facts suggest that it is the easiest to articulate of the bunch.   

>Did the English, once they lost
>the k in kn-, decide to refuse to pronounce all initial double consonants ?

Linguistics is not well-equipped to answer this question, at least not when
it's framed this way.  Why do language speakers make the "decisions" they
do?  We can argue that they were influenced by structural factors (like
phonological symmetry) or neighboring languages, but we really can't explain 
*why* a particular feature develops in the first place and why it spreads or 
doesn't (though there are some interesting theories and partial-explanations 
about).

With that in mind, one could posit that the phonotactical rule which deletes
k- before -n- in native English vocabularly (knight, knave, knife, etc.)
at some point got generalised to one which deletes all initial stops before 
consonants other than liquids (R,l).  Applying this rule to borrowed vocabu-
lary yields [s%lm] for psalm, [suwdow-] for pseudo-, etc.

(Obviously, a good history of English phonology would cover this topic
much more accurately and in greater detail than my seat-of-the-pants
analysis can.) 

>Why is kn- more difficult that kl-, anyway ? or pn- than pl-?

[l] and [R] are higher up on the sonority hierarchy than [n] and other
nasal stops, which is to say they are more "vowel-like" and, therefore,
easier to articulate in conjunction with other consonants and more likely to 
become syllable nuclei.  Of course, they fact that English has syllabic /l/,
/R/,/m/,/n/, and /N/ shows that the nasal stops aren't that much further down.
-- 
	 Daniel "Da" von Brighoff    /\          Dilettanten
	(deb5@midway.uchicago.edu)  /__\         erhebt Euch
				   /____\      gegen die Kunst!
