<div dir="ltr"><div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif">Dear Larry,</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif">Thanks for your reaction. I like your CCCCVC examples from Apinayé!</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif">> <span style="font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif"><i><font color="#741b47">I wonder if you have ever been tempted to say that the first consonant of the word-initial CC cluster is not in the onset?</font></i></span></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif">Interesting suggestion. I would need to see what would be the advantages & disadvantages of such an analysis, for Dorig and for Hiw (which may warrant different conclusions). Now let me think...</div><div class="gmail_default" style="direction:ltr;font-family:verdana,sans-serif">_____</div><div class="gmail_default" style="direction:ltr;font-family:verdana,sans-serif"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif">The language <b>Dorig</b> has interesting rules of syllabification, that seem to argue in favour of a CCVC underlying analysis.<font size="1"> </font></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif">Indeed, Dorig has a handful of prefixes of the form C(V)-, i.e. a consonant followed by an elidable vowel: e.g. Perfect /m(ɛ)-/, or Irrealis /s(ɔ)-/ <font size="1">(see <a href="https://marama.huma-num.fr/data/AlexFrancois_2024_Negation-in-Dorig_preprint.pdf#page=4">this other paper, p.4</a> )</font>. The elidable vowel will surface or not, depending on the shape of its lexical host:</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif">If the lexeme already has the shape CCVC - like /tβiɣ/ 'bury' -, then a prefixed form *C-CCVC would be ill-formed (a word starting with 3 consonants), so the underlying vowel must surface:</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif"><ul><li>/m(ɛ)-/ + /tβiɣ/ → m<u style="">ɛ</u>-tβiɣ</li><li>/s(ɔ)-/ + /tβiɣ/ → s<u>ɔ</u>-tβiɣ</li></ul></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif">But if the lexeme has a shape CVC (e.g. /tur/ 'stand'), then the prefix vowel does elide, because the resulting combination C-CVC becomes a well-formed syllable:</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif"><div class="gmail_default"><ul><li>/m(ɛ)-/ + /tur/ → m-tur </li><li>/s(ɔ)-/ + /tur/ → s-tur </li></ul></div>I see this as an indication that the CCVC template is operational in the phonological system of Dorig.</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif">______</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif">In the case of <b>Hiw</b>, I can think of 2 arguments favouring, I guess, the CCVC template:</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif">1) CC- allows no schwa epenthesis. In fact there are some minimal pairs with vs. without schwa:</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif"><ul><ul><li>/təg͡ʟɔɣə/ 'dirty' (3 syllables)</li><li>/təg͡ʟɔɣ/ 'peace' (2 syllables)</li><li>/tg͡ʟɔɣ/ 'throw:Pl' (1 syllable)</li></ul></ul></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif">Schwa is thus an underlying phoneme in Hiw -- contrary to many languages (like Kalam or Nen) where the epenthesis is predictable ~ allophonic.</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif">This could suggest that a word like /tg͡ʟɔɣ/ is genuinely ~ underlyingly a monosyllable CCVC.</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif">2) Some Hiw compounds involve a first element ending in -C#, followed by a second element starting in #CC-, thus yielding a sequence of 3 consonants -VC.CCV-. See these examples <font size="1">(from F2010, <a href="https://marama.huma-num.fr/data/AlexFrancois_Hiw-lateral_Phonology_published.pdf#page=6">p. 398</a> ) :</font></div><div class="gmail_default" style="text-align:center;font-family:verdana,sans-serif"><img src="cid:ii_me92x6jd3" alt="image.png" width="482" height="196" style="margin-right: 0px;"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif">It seems to me that these heterosyllabic C.CC clusters are best explained by establishing an underlying syllabic template of the form CCVC.</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif">____</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif">Finally, there is the special case of /w/ in Hiw, with unexpected clusters like /wte, wnɔt, wg͡ʟʉ/...</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif">I once considered explaining this odd behaviour of /w/ with respect to the SSP by proposing that /w/ is extra-syllabic ~ extra-templatic, in line with some analyses that have been proposed for Eng /s/, as you mentioned. If I had followed that path, then at least that phoneme /w/ would be analysed as external to the syllable onset.</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif">However, this did not seem an economical solution to me, because /w/ otherwise patterns like a C in the CCVC template (Note also the example of 'shake hands' above, /g͡ʟa<a href="http://xn--nxa.ws">β.ws</a>ɔɣ/, where /w/ is the first C of the second syllable.). If /w/ were extra-templatic in a language that otherwise has CCVC syllables, we would expect words starting in /wCCV-/, right? -- reminiscent of Eng. <i>spl-</i> & <i>spr-</i> words. Instead, /w/ behaves just like any C in the phonotactics of the language... except for sonority expectations.</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style=""><span style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif">My proposal<font size="1"> ( <a href="https://marama.huma-num.fr/data/AlexFrancois_Hiw-lateral_Phonology_published.pdf#page=20">pp.412 ff.</a> )</font> to account for the special behaviour of /w/ was to note that this segment patterns not like a glide, but like an obstruent (cf. the table with gray cells in my earlier email). </span><span style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif">It is as though /w/ were really an underlying */ɣʷ/, a rounded velar fricative. This hypothesis would make sense in the geometry of a system characterised </span><font face="verdana, sans-serif">by four plosives /p t k kʷ/ and four nasals /m n ŋ ŋʷ/, but only three fricatives /β s ɣ __/. </font></div><div class="gmail_default" style=""><font face="verdana, sans-serif">If we accept the idea that all occurrences of [w] in Hiw are in fact the surface realisation of an underlying */ɣʷ/, then a word like [<b>wn</b>ɔt] 'parcel' becomes analysable again as a well-formed CC onset {obstruent + nasal}, underlying */<b>ɣʷn</b>ɔt/, parallel to /<b>sŋ</b>i/ 'snout'. Likewise, a form like [wte] 'small' becomes a sonority plateau {obstruent + obstruent} */ɣʷte/, parallel to other well-formed onset plateaus like /<b>pt</b>ɔɣ/ or even /<b>ɣt</b>iɣ/. </font></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif">_______</div></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif">For these reasons, I would propose that CCVC is the underlying syllabic template for both languages:</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif"><ul><li>with no sonority restrictions whatsoever in the case of Dorig</li><li>with sonority restrictions in the case of Hiw (+ some language-specific adjustments).</li></ul></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif">I hope I'm making sense :-)</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif">best</div><div><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_signature" data-smartmail="gmail_signature"><div dir="ltr"><font size="2" style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif">Alex</font><hr style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-size:13.33px;font-style:normal;font-weight:400;letter-spacing:normal;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;word-spacing:0px" width="70" size="1" noshade align="left"><p style="font-family:verdana,geneva,sans-serif"><font size="2"><span style="color:rgb(69,129,142)">Alex François</span><span style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif"><br></span></font></p><span style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif"><font size="1"><span style="text-decoration:none"><a style="text-decoration:none" href="http://www.lattice.cnrs.fr/en/alexandre-francois/" rel="noopener" target="_blank">LaTTiCe</a> — <a title="ENS" style="color:rgb(51,102,204);text-decoration:none" href="https://www.cnrs.fr/en" rel="noopener" target="_blank">CNRS</a></span></font></span><span style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif"><font size="1"> </font></span><a title="ENS" 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target="_blank"></a><br></font><div><span style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif"><font size="1"><span style="text-decoration:none"><a style="color:rgb(51,102,204);text-decoration:none" href="https://researchportalplus.anu.edu.au/en/persons/alex-francois" rel="noopener" target="_blank">Australian National University</a></span></font></span></div><div><span style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif"><font size="1"><span style="text-decoration:none"><a style="color:rgb(51,102,204);text-decoration:none" href="http://alex.francois.online.fr/" rel="noopener" target="_blank">Personal homepage</a><br></span></font></span></div><div><font size="1">___________________</font><font size="1">___________________</font><font size="1">___</font><br><span style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif"><font size="1"><span style="text-decoration:none"></span></font></span></div></div></div></div><br><br><div class="gmail_quote gmail_quote_container"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">---------- Forwarded message ---------<br>From: <strong class="gmail_sendername" dir="auto">Larry M Hyman</strong> <span dir="auto"><<a href="mailto:hyman@berkeley.edu">hyman@berkeley.edu</a>></span><br>Date: Tue, 12 Aug 2025 at 21:33<br>Subject: Re: [Lingtyp] Homoorganic vs. heteroorganic assymetry in nasal-plosive onset clusters<br>To: Alex Francois <<a href="mailto:alex.francois.cnrs@gmail.com">alex.francois.cnrs@gmail.com</a>><br>Cc: JOO Ian <<a href="mailto:joo@res.otaru-uc.ac.jp">joo@res.otaru-uc.ac.jp</a>>, LingTyp <<a href="mailto:lingtyp@listserv.linguistlist.org">lingtyp@listserv.linguistlist.org</a>><br></div><br><br><div dir="ltr">Thanks, Alex, this is really great stuff! I wonder if you have ever been tempted to say that the first consonant of the word-initial CC cluster is not in the onset? I am reminded of the various treatments of initial sC and final Cs, which superficially violate the Sonority Sequencing Principle, where the /s/ has been analyzed as part of the onset, as within the syllable at a higher supersyllable level, outside the syllable, or by saying that /s/ is either not more sonorous than the adajcent stop, rather is just more strident. There are some languages that have even CCC and CCCC word initial clusters where there consonant releases (very short vocalic transitions?) among them. Here is a summary I once prepared of Apinayé [apn] (Macro-Ge, Brazil) from
<span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Palatino">Burgess, Eunice & Patricia Ham. 1968. Multilevel
conditioning of phoneme variants in Apinayé. <i>Linguistics</i> 41.5-18.</span><div><font face="Palatino"><span style="font-size:13.3333px"><br></span></font></div><div><font face="Palatino"><span style="font-size:13.3333px">Maximal Syllable Structure: CCCCVC, which mostly follows the SSP:</span></font></div><div><font face="Palatino"><span style="font-size:13.3333px"><br></span></font></div><div><img src="cid:ii_me8xtn6h3" alt="image.png" width="562" height="221"><br><div><br></div><div><br></div></div></div><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Tue, Aug 12, 2025 at 3:14 AM Alex Francois <<a href="mailto:alex.francois.cnrs@gmail.com" target="_blank">alex.francois.cnrs@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr"><div><div style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif">Dear Ian, dear Larry,</div><div style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif"><br></div><div style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif">Thanks for this discussion. The Bantu data is fascinating.</div><div style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif"><br></div><div style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif">While Oceanic languages tend to comply with the Sonority Sequencing Principle (SSP) in their phonotactics, some languages have gone rogue in this respect.</div><div style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif">Two languages of northern Vanuatu in particular, namely Dorig and Hiw, have followed processes of syncope; they've ended up with a prototypical CCVC syllabic template, and many tautosyllabic (in addition to heterosyllabic) consonant clusters.</div><div style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif"><br></div></div><blockquote style="margin:0px 0px 0px 40px;border:none;padding:0px"><div><div style="text-align:right;font-family:verdana,sans-serif">NB: The data below comes from the following article<font size="1"> [<a href="http://alex.francois.online.fr/AFpub_articles_e.htm#2010c" target="_blank">available here</a>]:</font></div></div><div style="text-align:right"><font face="arial narrow, sans-serif">François, Alexandre. 2010. Phonotactics and the prestopped velar lateral in Hiw: <br>Resolving the ambiguity of a complex segment. <i>Phonology </i>27 (3): 393-434.</font></div></blockquote><div><div style="text-align:right;font-family:verdana,sans-serif"><br></div><div style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif">In <b>Dorig</b><font size="1"> [Gaua island, Banks group]</font>, most combinations are attested, whether homorganic or heterorganic, and whether SSP-compliant or not:</div><div style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif"><ul><li>e.g. /<b>km</b>aːr/ '2dual', /<b>tᵐb</b>ɪŋ/ 'to shut', /<b>ᵐbt</b>ɔt/ 'canoe pegs', /<b>nt</b>i/ 'child', /<b>mk</b>ɛ/ 'above', /<b>rk͡pʷ</b>a/ 'woman', /<b>ɣt</b>am/ 'door', /<b>wⁿd</b>ɛ/ 'pig'...</li></ul><div style="text-align:center"><img src="cid:ii_me8bg9iu0" alt="image.png" width="406" height="355" style="margin-right:0px"></div></div></div><blockquote style="margin:0px 0px 0px 40px;border:none;padding:0px"><div><div><div style="text-align:center"><font face="georgia, serif">(Grayed cells represent sonority reversals)</font></div></div></div></blockquote><div><div style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif"><div style="text-align:left"><br></div></div></div><blockquote style="margin:0px 0px 0px 40px;border:none;padding:0px"><div><div style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif"><div style="text-align:left">Note, in passing, the prenasalized phonemes in /<b>ᵐb</b>tɔt/ 'canoe pegs', /<b>ⁿd</b>ŋ͡mʷuɣ/ 'mosquito', /w<b>ⁿd</b>ɛ/ 'pig', /ŋ<b>ⁿd</b>ɪr/ 'coconut crab'.</div></div></div></blockquote><div><div style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif"><div style="text-align:left"><br></div><div style="text-align:left">Dorig does not seem to show any signs, whether synchronic or diachronic, of preferring homorganic over heterorganic clusters. (If it has any preference, it would be for heterorganic.)</div><div style="text-align:left">________</div><div style="text-align:left"><b>Hiw</b><font size="1"> [Torres Is.]</font> also has some interesting clusters:</div></div></div><div><div style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif"><ul><li>stop+nasal: /tnɪɣ/ 'very', /pne/ 'to sling on shoulder', /kŋʷa/ 'today', /kʷne/ 'smell', </li><li>others: /tg͡ʟɵt/ 'sweet', /kʷg͡ʟɪ/ 'dolphin', /kʷg͡ʟɵɣ/ 'wooden club', /mg͡ʟe/ 'wrath', /ŋʷg͡ʟewon/ 'bush', <br> /βti/ 'star', /wte/ 'small', /wnɔt/ 'parcel', /wg͡ʟɵn/ 'fetch'</li></ul></div><div style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif">However, as wild as some clusters may seem, most do comply with the SSP. Thus while /tn-/ is licensed, */nt-/ is ill-formed in Hiw (whereas it's fine in Dorig).</div><div style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif"><br></div><div style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif">The relevance of the SSP in Hiw is visible from the light-gray empty cells in this table:</div><div style="text-align:center;font-family:verdana,sans-serif"><img src="cid:ii_me8c1wcq1" alt="image.png" width="438" height="390" style="margin-right:0px"><br></div><br clear="all"></div><div><div style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif">Hiw does present some sonority reversals (dark gray cells), but these can be explained by Hiw-specific rules, e.g. regarding the odd behavior of /w/ (comparable to the odd behaviour of /s/ in English clusters). In terms of sonority, the complex segment /g͡ʟ/ behaves not like a plosive (a laterally-released stop?) but like a liquid (a prestopped lateral) --- which was the main thread of my 2010 paper.</div><div style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif"><br></div><div style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif">To come back to Ian's question on homorganicity, we may note that, while Hiw treats sonority as (mostly) relevant in forming its syllables, it does not show obvious restrictions regarding heterorganicity. Compare /<b>kg͡ʟ</b>e/ 'scraps' with /<b>tg͡ʟ</b>ɵt/ 'sweet', /<b>tn</b>ɪɣ/ 'very' with /<b>pn</b>e/ 'carry on shoulder'.</div><div style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif"><br></div><div style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif">The only signs that Hiw may have a slight preference for homorganicity are diachronic, as certain sound changes involved assimilation in point-of-articulation (at least for coronals assimilating to a velar):</div><div style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif"><ul><li>'belly': *toᵐbʷa- > *təkʷa- > *tkʷa- > /<b>kkʷ</b>a/
(cf. /təkʷe/ in neighboring Lo-Toga)</li><li>'today': *ⁿdamʷai
> *ʈəŋʷa
> *tŋʷa > /<b>kŋʷ</b>a/
(cf. /ʈəŋʷe/ in Lo-Toga)</li></ul></div><div style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif"></div></div><div><div style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif">Yet this slight preference of Hiw has not turned into a synchronic rule of avoiding heterorganic clusters in general.</div><div style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif"><br></div><div style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif">best</div></div><div><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_signature"><div dir="ltr"><font size="2" style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif">Alex</font><hr style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-size:13.33px;font-style:normal;font-weight:400;letter-spacing:normal;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;word-spacing:0px" width="70" size="1" noshade align="left"><p style="font-family:verdana,geneva,sans-serif"><font size="2"><span style="color:rgb(69,129,142)">Alex François</span><span style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif"><br></span></font></p><span style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif"><font size="1"><span style="text-decoration:none"><a style="text-decoration:none" href="http://www.lattice.cnrs.fr/en/alexandre-francois/" rel="noopener" target="_blank">LaTTiCe</a> — <a title="ENS" style="color:rgb(51,102,204);text-decoration:none" href="https://www.cnrs.fr/en" rel="noopener" target="_blank">CNRS</a></span></font></span><span style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif"><font size="1"> </font></span><a title="ENS" style="color:rgb(51,102,204);text-decoration:none" href="https://www.cnrs.fr/en" rel="noopener" target="_blank"><span style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif"><font size="1">—</font></span></a><span style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif"><font size="1"> </font></span><span style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif"><font size="1"><span style="text-decoration:none"><a title="ENS" style="color:rgb(51,102,204);text-decoration:none" href="https://www.ens.fr/laboratoire/lattice-langues-textes-traitements-informatiques-et-cognition-umr-8094" rel="noopener" target="_blank">ENS</a></span></font></span><span style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif"><font size="1"><span style="text-decoration:none">–</span></font></span><span style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif"><font size="1"><span style="text-decoration:none"><a title="ENS" style="color:rgb(51,102,204);text-decoration:none" href="https://www.psl.eu/en" rel="noopener" target="_blank">PSL</a></span></font></span><span style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif"><font size="1"> — </font></span><span style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif"><font size="1"><span style="text-decoration:none"><a title="ENS" style="color:rgb(51,102,204);text-decoration:none" href="http://www.sorbonne-nouvelle.fr/lattice-langues-textes-traitements-informatiques-cognition-umr-8094-3458.kjsp" rel="noopener" target="_blank">Sorbonne nouvelle</a></span></font></span><a title="ENS" style="color:rgb(51,102,204);text-decoration:none" href="http://www.sorbonne-nouvelle.fr/lattice-langues-textes-traitements-informatiques-cognition-umr-8094-3458.kjsp" rel="noopener" target="_blank"><span style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif"><font size="1"><span style="text-decoration:none"></span></font></span></a><font size="1"><a title="ENS" style="color:rgb(51,102,204);text-decoration:none" href="http://www.sorbonne-nouvelle.fr/lattice-langues-textes-traitements-informatiques-cognition-umr-8094-3458.kjsp" rel="noopener" target="_blank"></a><br></font><div><span style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif"><font size="1"><span style="text-decoration:none"><a style="color:rgb(51,102,204);text-decoration:none" href="https://researchportalplus.anu.edu.au/en/persons/alex-francois" rel="noopener" target="_blank">Australian National University</a></span></font></span></div><div><span style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif"><font size="1"><span style="text-decoration:none"><a style="color:rgb(51,102,204);text-decoration:none" href="http://alex.francois.online.fr/" rel="noopener" target="_blank">Personal homepage</a><br></span></font></span></div><div><font size="1">___________________</font><font size="1">___________________</font><font size="1">___</font><br><span style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif"><font size="1"><span style="text-decoration:none"></span></font></span></div></div></div></div><br><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">---------- Forwarded message ---------<br>From: <strong class="gmail_sendername" dir="auto">Larry M Hyman via Lingtyp</strong> <span dir="auto"><<a href="mailto:lingtyp@listserv.linguistlist.org" target="_blank">lingtyp@listserv.linguistlist.org</a>></span><br>Date: Tue, 12 Aug 2025 at 08:00<br>Subject: Re: [Lingtyp] Homoorganic vs. heteroorganic assymetry in nasal-plosive onset clusters<br>To: JOO Ian <<a href="mailto:joo@res.otaru-uc.ac.jp" target="_blank">joo@res.otaru-uc.ac.jp</a>><br>Cc: list, typology <<a href="mailto:lingtyp@listserv.linguistlist.org" target="_blank">lingtyp@listserv.linguistlist.org</a>><br></div><br><br><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div id="m_-8644221226155447303m_2792939191517790172m_1969330833910882056m_3135754790320416171gmail-:jpk" aria-label="Message Body" role="textbox" aria-multiline="true" style="direction:ltr;min-height:85px" aria-controls=":juf" aria-expanded="false"><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;text-align:justify;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">Dear Ian,</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;text-align:justify;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;text-align:justify;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">I’ve waited a week to see if others might answer in more
explanatory phonetic terms, but since you got me thinking, I thought I’d offer
a few comments about the nasal-stop asymmetries you noted.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;text-align:justify;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;text-align:justify;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">Since you only presented labials and
dental-alveolars, here is a more complete table of what we need to consider (in
fact, more).</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;text-align:justify;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> </p>
<table border="1" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" style="border-collapse:collapse;border:none">
<tbody><tr>
<td colspan="3" valign="top" style="border-top:none;border-right:none;border-left:none;border-bottom:1pt solid windowtext;padding:0in 5.4pt">
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;text-align:justify;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">“Better” Onsets</p>
</td>
<td valign="top" style="border:none;padding:0in 5.4pt">
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;text-align:justify;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> </p>
</td>
<td colspan="3" valign="top" style="border-top:none;border-right:none;border-left:none;border-bottom:1pt solid windowtext;padding:0in 5.4pt">
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;text-align:justify;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">“Worse” Onsets </p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top" style="border-right:1pt solid windowtext;border-bottom:1pt solid windowtext;border-left:1pt solid windowtext;border-top:none;padding:0in 5.4pt">
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;text-align:justify;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">pm</p>
</td>
<td valign="top" style="border-top:none;border-left:none;border-bottom:1pt solid windowtext;border-right:1pt solid windowtext;padding:0in 5.4pt">
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;text-align:justify;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">pn</p>
</td>
<td valign="top" style="border-top:none;border-left:none;border-bottom:1pt solid windowtext;border-right:1pt solid windowtext;padding:0in 5.4pt">
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;text-align:justify;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">pŋ</p>
</td>
<td valign="top" style="border-top:none;border-bottom:none;border-left:none;border-right:1pt solid windowtext;padding:0in 5.4pt">
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;text-align:justify;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> </p>
</td>
<td valign="top" style="border-top:none;border-left:none;border-bottom:1pt solid windowtext;border-right:1pt solid windowtext;padding:0in 5.4pt">
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;text-align:justify;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">mp</p>
</td>
<td valign="top" style="border-top:1pt solid windowtext;border-right:1pt solid windowtext;border-bottom:1pt solid windowtext;border-left:none;padding:0in 5.4pt">
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;text-align:justify;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">np</p>
</td>
<td valign="top" style="border-top:1pt solid windowtext;border-right:1pt solid windowtext;border-bottom:1pt solid windowtext;border-left:none;padding:0in 5.4pt">
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;text-align:justify;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">ŋp</p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top" style="border-right:1pt solid windowtext;border-bottom:1pt solid windowtext;border-left:1pt solid windowtext;border-top:none;padding:0in 5.4pt">
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;text-align:justify;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">tm</p>
</td>
<td valign="top" style="border-top:none;border-left:none;border-bottom:1pt solid windowtext;border-right:1pt solid windowtext;padding:0in 5.4pt">
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;text-align:justify;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">tn</p>
</td>
<td valign="top" style="border-top:none;border-left:none;border-bottom:1pt solid windowtext;border-right:1pt solid windowtext;padding:0in 5.4pt">
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;text-align:justify;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">tŋ</p>
</td>
<td valign="top" style="border-top:none;border-bottom:none;border-left:none;border-right:1pt solid windowtext;padding:0in 5.4pt">
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;text-align:justify;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> </p>
</td>
<td valign="top" style="border-top:none;border-left:none;border-bottom:1pt solid windowtext;border-right:1pt solid windowtext;padding:0in 5.4pt">
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;text-align:justify;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">mt</p>
</td>
<td valign="top" style="border-top:none;border-left:none;border-bottom:1pt solid windowtext;border-right:1pt solid windowtext;padding:0in 5.4pt">
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;text-align:justify;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">nt</p>
</td>
<td valign="top" style="border-top:none;border-left:none;border-bottom:1pt solid windowtext;border-right:1pt solid windowtext;padding:0in 5.4pt">
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;text-align:justify;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">ŋt</p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top" style="border-right:1pt solid windowtext;border-bottom:1pt solid windowtext;border-left:1pt solid windowtext;border-top:none;padding:0in 5.4pt">
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;text-align:justify;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">km</p>
</td>
<td valign="top" style="border-top:none;border-left:none;border-bottom:1pt solid windowtext;border-right:1pt solid windowtext;padding:0in 5.4pt">
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;text-align:justify;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">kn</p>
</td>
<td valign="top" style="border-top:none;border-left:none;border-bottom:1pt solid windowtext;border-right:1pt solid windowtext;padding:0in 5.4pt">
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;text-align:justify;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">kŋ</p>
</td>
<td valign="top" style="border-top:none;border-bottom:none;border-left:none;border-right:1pt solid windowtext;padding:0in 5.4pt">
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;text-align:justify;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> </p>
</td>
<td valign="top" style="border-top:none;border-left:none;border-bottom:1pt solid windowtext;border-right:1pt solid windowtext;padding:0in 5.4pt">
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;text-align:justify;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">mk</p>
</td>
<td valign="top" style="border-top:none;border-left:none;border-bottom:1pt solid windowtext;border-right:1pt solid windowtext;padding:0in 5.4pt">
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;text-align:justify;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">nk</p>
</td>
<td valign="top" style="border-top:none;border-left:none;border-bottom:1pt solid windowtext;border-right:1pt solid windowtext;padding:0in 5.4pt">
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;text-align:justify;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">ŋk</p>
</td>
</tr>
</tbody></table>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;text-align:justify;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;text-align:justify;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">While your numbers aren’t large and some of the differences
are not so great (e.g. 11 mt- vs. 15 tm-), I think you are right that heterorganic
CN is a much more common onset than NC. I would relate this to the Sonority
Sequencing Constraint whereby a better CC onset would be one where the first C
is less sonorous (e.g. a stop), than the second C (e.g. a sonorant). Thus, pl-
is a good onset, while lp- is less so (and much rarer). The mirror image
generally holds for codas: -lp is better than -pl. As Gussenhoven and Jacobs (2005:
138) put it: “syllables prefer to start with a bang and end with a whimper”.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;text-align:justify;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;text-align:justify;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">While the generalization covers more than nasal+stop or
stop+nasal, nasals do present a special situation. <span style="font-size:12pt">The African languages I work on generally do not have
complex onsets, but there are many which have either prenasalized consonants,
syllabic nasal + consonant, or both. Nasally released CN is less attested,
although importantly in Gwari [</span><span style="font-size:12pt;font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;font-variant-caps:small-caps;font-variant-alternates:normal">gbr</span><span style="font-size:12pt">],
a Benue-Congo language of Nigeria (see below). Whether to analyze homorganic NC and CN as one vs. two segments is a question
that commonly arises. </span>Heterorganic<span style="font-size:12pt"> NC and CN are (always?) two segments.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;text-align:justify;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;text-align:justify;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">Coming back to the asymmetry you point out, I think it also
could be useful to look at the origin of the complex clusters. I assume that consonant
clusters mostly come from syncope, e.g. the yer phenomena in Slavic and vowel
weakening in the minor syllable of sesquisyllabic languages in Southeast Asia. In
Hyman (1972)<i>,</i> <i> </i>I showed, ignoring vowel nasalization,
the following sequence of changes: *CVNV > CNV > CV᷉. Gwari shows the
second step with nasal release. (In doing my fieldwork back in 1970, the [a] of
Cŋa was perceptually oral to me. Although it may be slightly nasalized, it
certainly does not sound like closely related Nupe
[<span style="font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;font-variant-caps:small-caps;font-variant-alternates:normal">nup</span>], which has fully nasalized vowels
instead of nasally related consonants, e.g. gã̀ ‘speak’.)</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;text-align:justify;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> </p>
<table border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" style="border-collapse:collapse;border:none">
<tbody><tr>
<td valign="top" style="padding:0in 5.4pt">
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;text-align:justify;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">Gwari</p>
</td>
<td valign="top" style="padding:0in 5.4pt">
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;text-align:justify;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> </p>
</td>
<td valign="top" style="padding:0in 5.4pt">
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;text-align:justify;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> </p>
</td>
<td valign="top" style="padding:0in 5.4pt">
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;text-align:justify;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">cf. Proto-Grassfields Bantu</p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top" style="padding:0in 5.4pt">
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;text-align:justify;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">ò-kŋǎ</p>
</td>
<td valign="top" style="padding:0in 5.4pt">
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;text-align:justify;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">‘monkey’</p>
</td>
<td valign="top" style="padding:0in 5.4pt">
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;text-align:justify;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> </p>
</td>
<td valign="top" style="padding:0in 5.4pt">
<p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="text-align:center;margin:0in;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">*káná</p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top" style="padding:0in 5.4pt">
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;text-align:justify;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">kŋā</p>
</td>
<td valign="top" style="padding:0in 5.4pt">
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;text-align:justify;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">‘to fry’</p>
</td>
<td valign="top" style="padding:0in 5.4pt">
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;text-align:justify;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> </p>
</td>
<td valign="top" style="padding:0in 5.4pt">
<p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="text-align:center;margin:0in;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">*káŋ-i</p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top" style="padding:0in 5.4pt">
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;text-align:justify;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">gŋà</p>
</td>
<td valign="top" style="padding:0in 5.4pt">
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;text-align:justify;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">‘to speak’</p>
</td>
<td valign="top" style="padding:0in 5.4pt">
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;text-align:justify;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> </p>
</td>
<td valign="top" style="padding:0in 5.4pt">
<p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="text-align:center;margin:0in;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">*ɣàm</p>
</td>
</tr>
</tbody></table>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;text-align:justify;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;text-align:justify;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">So the question is whether syncope would be equally likely
to produce such onsets as tm- and mt- from *tVmV and *mVtV, respectively? Siva
has already pointed out that *m would tend to undergo homorganic nasal
assimilation, i.e. mtV > ntV. Another possibility is that the nasal would become
syllabic, as is often the case in African languages. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;text-align:justify;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;text-align:justify;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">Again there is a parallel with /l/. In a number of West
African languages earlier CVlV alternates with ClV, which ultimately wins out
(see Sande 2024 for a recent statement about this phenomenon in Kru languages).
Idoma [<span style="font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;font-variant-caps:small-caps;font-variant-alternates:normal">idu</span>], a Benue-Congo
language of Nigeria, actually has Cl̩V, where the /l/ (--> [r] after
coronals) is syllabic and tone-bearing (Abraham 1951/1967: 108, Hyman 1985: 49),
e.g. pĺ̩-à ‘deceived’, ú-dŕ̩-ō ‘navel’. Interestingly, syllabic /l/ doesn’t
appear after nasals. Instead, the nasal is syllabic and the liquid a lone
(non-syllabic) onset consonant: m̩̀lɛ̀ ‘swallowed’. Preconsonantal syllabic nasals
are “better” than post-consonantal liquids!</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;text-align:justify;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"><br>
I assume that your asymmetry holds of onsets in general, not just in
word-initial position, where longer (and more unusual) consonant sequences
would be more likely. However, it does not hold for heterosyllabic consonant
clusters. Instead we find the reverse asymmetry when consonants meet across syllables
(cf. Vennemann 1988):</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;text-align:justify;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> </p>
<table border="1" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" style="border-collapse:collapse;border:none">
<tbody><tr>
<td colspan="3" valign="top" style="border-top:none;border-right:none;border-left:none;border-bottom:1pt solid windowtext;padding:0in 5.4pt">
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;text-align:justify;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">“Worse” Contacts</p>
</td>
<td valign="top" style="border:none;padding:0in 5.4pt">
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;text-align:justify;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> </p>
</td>
<td colspan="3" valign="top" style="border-top:none;border-right:none;border-left:none;border-bottom:1pt solid windowtext;padding:0in 5.4pt">
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;text-align:justify;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">“Better” Contacts</p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top" style="border-right:1pt solid windowtext;border-bottom:1pt solid windowtext;border-left:1pt solid windowtext;border-top:none;padding:0in 5.4pt">
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;text-align:justify;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">p.m</p>
</td>
<td valign="top" style="border-top:none;border-left:none;border-bottom:1pt solid windowtext;border-right:1pt solid windowtext;padding:0in 5.4pt">
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;text-align:justify;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">p.n</p>
</td>
<td valign="top" style="border-top:none;border-left:none;border-bottom:1pt solid windowtext;border-right:1pt solid windowtext;padding:0in 5.4pt">
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;text-align:justify;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">p.ŋ</p>
</td>
<td valign="top" style="border-top:none;border-bottom:none;border-left:none;border-right:1pt solid windowtext;padding:0in 5.4pt">
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;text-align:justify;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> </p>
</td>
<td valign="top" style="border-top:none;border-left:none;border-bottom:1pt solid windowtext;border-right:1pt solid windowtext;padding:0in 5.4pt">
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;text-align:justify;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">m.p</p>
</td>
<td valign="top" style="border-top:1pt solid windowtext;border-right:1pt solid windowtext;border-bottom:1pt solid windowtext;border-left:none;padding:0in 5.4pt">
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;text-align:justify;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">n.p</p>
</td>
<td valign="top" style="border-top:1pt solid windowtext;border-right:1pt solid windowtext;border-bottom:1pt solid windowtext;border-left:none;padding:0in 5.4pt">
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;text-align:justify;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">ŋ.p</p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top" style="border-right:1pt solid windowtext;border-bottom:1pt solid windowtext;border-left:1pt solid windowtext;border-top:none;padding:0in 5.4pt">
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;text-align:justify;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">t.m</p>
</td>
<td valign="top" style="border-top:none;border-left:none;border-bottom:1pt solid windowtext;border-right:1pt solid windowtext;padding:0in 5.4pt">
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;text-align:justify;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">t.n</p>
</td>
<td valign="top" style="border-top:none;border-left:none;border-bottom:1pt solid windowtext;border-right:1pt solid windowtext;padding:0in 5.4pt">
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;text-align:justify;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">t.ŋ</p>
</td>
<td valign="top" style="border-top:none;border-bottom:none;border-left:none;border-right:1pt solid windowtext;padding:0in 5.4pt">
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;text-align:justify;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> </p>
</td>
<td valign="top" style="border-top:none;border-left:none;border-bottom:1pt solid windowtext;border-right:1pt solid windowtext;padding:0in 5.4pt">
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;text-align:justify;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">m.t</p>
</td>
<td valign="top" style="border-top:none;border-left:none;border-bottom:1pt solid windowtext;border-right:1pt solid windowtext;padding:0in 5.4pt">
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;text-align:justify;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">n.t</p>
</td>
<td valign="top" style="border-top:none;border-left:none;border-bottom:1pt solid windowtext;border-right:1pt solid windowtext;padding:0in 5.4pt">
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;text-align:justify;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">ŋ.t</p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top" style="border-right:1pt solid windowtext;border-bottom:1pt solid windowtext;border-left:1pt solid windowtext;border-top:none;padding:0in 5.4pt">
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;text-align:justify;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">k.m</p>
</td>
<td valign="top" style="border-top:none;border-left:none;border-bottom:1pt solid windowtext;border-right:1pt solid windowtext;padding:0in 5.4pt">
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;text-align:justify;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">k.n</p>
</td>
<td valign="top" style="border-top:none;border-left:none;border-bottom:1pt solid windowtext;border-right:1pt solid windowtext;padding:0in 5.4pt">
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;text-align:justify;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">k.ŋ</p>
</td>
<td valign="top" style="border-top:none;border-bottom:none;border-left:none;border-right:1pt solid windowtext;padding:0in 5.4pt">
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;text-align:justify;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> </p>
</td>
<td valign="top" style="border-top:none;border-left:none;border-bottom:1pt solid windowtext;border-right:1pt solid windowtext;padding:0in 5.4pt">
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;text-align:justify;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">m.k</p>
</td>
<td valign="top" style="border-top:none;border-left:none;border-bottom:1pt solid windowtext;border-right:1pt solid windowtext;padding:0in 5.4pt">
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;text-align:justify;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">n.k</p>
</td>
<td valign="top" style="border-top:none;border-left:none;border-bottom:1pt solid windowtext;border-right:1pt solid windowtext;padding:0in 5.4pt">
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;text-align:justify;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">ŋ.k</p>
</td>
</tr>
</tbody></table>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;text-align:justify;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;text-align:justify;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">This again has to do with sonority: with <a href="http://CVN.CV" target="_blank">CVN.CV</a> we get Gussenhoven
& Jacob’s coda whimper followed by an onset bang.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;text-align:justify;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;text-align:justify;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">Thanks for getting me thinking about this.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;text-align:justify;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;text-align:justify;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">Cited works:</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;text-align:justify;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;text-align:justify;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">Abraham, R.C. 1951/1967. <i>The
Idoma language</i>. London: University of London Press.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;text-align:justify;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;text-align:justify;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">Gussenhoven, Carlos & Haike Jacobs. 2005. Understanding
phonology. 2nd Edition. London: Hodder Arnold. (I haven’t checked more recent
editions).</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;text-align:justify;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;text-align:justify;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">Hyman, Larry M. 1972. Nasals and nasalization in Kwa. <i>Studies in African Linguistics</i>
3.167-206.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;text-align:justify;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;text-align:justify;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">Hyman, Larry M. 1985. <i>A
theory of phonological weight</i>. Dordrecht: Foris. (Reprinted with a new
introduction with William R. Leben. Stanford, CSLI, 2003.)</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0in 0.5in;text-align:justify;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" align="left" style="margin:0in;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">Sande, Hannah. 2024. Insertion or deletion? CVCV/CCV
alternations in Kru languages. In Ji Yea Kim, Veronica Miatto, Andrija Petrović
& Lori Repetti (eds.), <i>Epenthesis and
beyond: Recent approaches to insertion in phonology and its interfaces</i>, 21–55.
Berlin: Language Science Pres</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;text-align:justify;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;text-align:justify;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"><span><span style="color:black;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial">Vennemann, Theo</span></span><span style="color:black;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial">. <span><span style="box-sizing:border-box">1988</span></span>. <span><i><span style="box-sizing:border-box">Preference laws for syllable structure and the explanation of
sound change: With special reference to German, Germanic, Italian, and Latin</span></i></span>. <span><span style="box-sizing:border-box;margin-left:0.125rem">Berlin</span></span>: Mouton de Gruyter.</span></p></div></div><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Tue, Aug 5, 2025 at 2:48 AM JOO Ian via Lingtyp <<a href="mailto:lingtyp@listserv.linguistlist.org" target="_blank">lingtyp@listserv.linguistlist.org</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div>
<div lang="ko-JP">
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif">Dear typologists,<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><u></u> <u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif">It has occurred to me that homoorganic nasal-plosive onset clusters (e.g. /mp-/) seem to be more common than homoorganic plosive-nasal onset clusters (e.g. /pm-/),
whereas heteroorganic plosive-nasal clusters (e.g. /pn-/) are more common than heteroorganic nasal-plosive clusters (e.g. /np/-).<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif">For example, based on
<a href="https://www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi/10.1515/lingty-2023-0094" target="_blank">Phonotacticon 1.0</a>, which is limited to Eurasia, the following number of lects have the following onset clusters:<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><u></u> <u></u></span></p>
<p style="margin-left:44pt">
<u></u><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Wingdings"><span>l<span style="font:7pt "Times New Roman"">
</span></span></span><u></u><span dir="LTR"></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif">/pm-/ : 2<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p style="margin-left:44pt">
<u></u><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Wingdings"><span>l<span style="font:7pt "Times New Roman"">
</span></span></span><u></u><span dir="LTR"></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif">/mp-/ : 12<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p style="margin-left:44pt">
<u></u><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Wingdings"><span>l<span style="font:7pt "Times New Roman"">
</span></span></span><u></u><span dir="LTR"></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif">/pn-/ : 14<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p style="margin-left:44pt">
<u></u><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Wingdings"><span>l<span style="font:7pt "Times New Roman"">
</span></span></span><u></u><span dir="LTR"></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif">/np-/ : 4<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><u></u> <u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif">When looking at, say, /tn- nt- tm- mt-/, the pattern is the sameː<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><u></u> <u></u></span></p>
<p style="margin-left:44pt">
<u></u><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Wingdings"><span>l<span style="font:7pt "Times New Roman"">
</span></span></span><u></u><span dir="LTR"></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif">/tn-/ ː 8<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p style="margin-left:44pt">
<u></u><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Wingdings"><span>l<span style="font:7pt "Times New Roman"">
</span></span></span><u></u><span dir="LTR"></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif">/nt-/ ː 13<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p style="margin-left:44pt">
<u></u><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Wingdings"><span>l<span style="font:7pt "Times New Roman"">
</span></span></span><u></u><span dir="LTR"></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif">/tm- / ː 15<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p style="margin-left:44pt">
<u></u><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Wingdings"><span>l<span style="font:7pt "Times New Roman"">
</span></span></span><u></u><span dir="LTR"></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif">/mt-/ ː 11<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><u></u> <u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><u></u> <u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif">What could explain this assymetry?<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><u></u> <u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif">From Otaru,<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif">Ian<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><u></u> <u></u></span></p>
<div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="word-break:keep-all">
<span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:black">- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -</span><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:black">
<span lang="EN-US">-</span></span><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:black"><br>
</span><span lang="KO" style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"MS Gothic";color:black">朱 易安</span><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:black"> <br>
JOO, IAN <br>
</span><span lang="KO" style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"MS Gothic";color:black">准教授</span><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:black"> <br>
Associate Professor <br>
</span><span lang="KO" style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"MS Gothic";color:black">小樽商科大学</span><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:black"> <br>
Otaru University of Commerce<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:black"><u></u> <u></u></span></p>
</div>
</div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Apple Color Emoji";color:black">🌐</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:black"> <a href="http://ianjoo.github.io/" target="_blank"><span style="color:rgb(113,79,188)">ianjoo.github.io</span></a><br>
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><u></u> <u></u></span></p>
</div>
</div>
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</div></blockquote></div><div><br clear="all"></div><div><br></div><span class="gmail_signature_prefix">-- </span><br><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_signature"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div>Larry M. Hyman, Distinguished Professor of the Graduate School</div><div>& Director, France-Berkeley Fund, University of California, Berkeley</div><div><a href="https://linguistics.berkeley.edu/~hyman" style="color:rgb(17,85,204)" target="_blank">https://linguistics.berkeley.edu/~hyman</a><br></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div>
</div>
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</div></div>
</blockquote></div><div><br clear="all"></div><div><br></div><span class="gmail_signature_prefix">-- </span><br><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_signature"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div>Larry M. Hyman, Distinguished Professor of the Graduate School</div><div>& Director, France-Berkeley Fund, University of California, Berkeley</div><div><a href="https://linguistics.berkeley.edu/~hyman" style="color:rgb(17,85,204)" target="_blank">https://linguistics.berkeley.edu/~hyman</a><br></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div>
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