Re: intervocalic consonant clusters in Lojban & Vorlin

[Rick Morneau <cbmvax!uunet!pucc.princeton.edu!mnu>]

In an earlier post, Mark Shoulson writes:
>
> I think most assimilation is likely to be regressive (i.e. the
> earlier consonant changes to be in concord with the later, so [mt]
> wouldn't go to [mp]).  This is how the Skt rules go, and also how I
> find more natural. There are sure to be exceptions, though.
>
An interesting example of what you call "regressive" occurs in
Korean. In Korean, if a morpheme ends in /p/ and the following
morpheme starts with /n/, the result is pronounced [mn]. For example,
/hap/ + /nida/ is pronounced [hamnida]. In other words, a stop
assimilates to a nasal. I've never seen this phenomenon in any other
language. What I find especially odd about it is that it occurs
across a morpheme boundary. I guess you could call it an extreme case
of consonant harmony.

By the way, you mentioned that some people pronounce "sandwich" as if
it were spelled "samwich". I've only heard this from very young
children or very inebriated adults.

Finally, I am starting to suspect that this discussion is probably
very boring to most conlangers and lojbanists. Perhaps we should end
it here, or take it to email.

Have a nice day!

Rick

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=  Rick Morneau            Idaho National Engineering Laboratory  =
*  mnu@inel.gov            Idaho Falls, Idaho 83415, USA          *
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