Funny W

[Alan Knutson]

Similar to Korean where word initial 'r' is pronounced 'n'.   Ie. Pres
Roh pronounced Noh.

Alan K

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-siouan at lists.colorado.edu
[mailto:owner-siouan at lists.colorado.edu] On Behalf Of Koontz John E
Sent: Monday, November 06, 2006 2:37 AM
To: siouan at lists.colorado.edu
Subject: RE: Funny W


On Fri, 3 Nov 2006, Alan Knutson wrote:
> Just a thought here, could it be possible that these two sets, *W and
> *R, are the result of the loss of a nasal vowel between two like
> resonants with the nasal feature being retained.  For example
**waNw...>
> *W and **raNr.. > *R

I think that's pretty much what Bob is saying when he traces *W and *R
to
*wa-w... and *wa-r...  However, I don't think he requires them to be
nasal.  I'm not clear how much of the behavior of *W and *R is due to
this
sort of ancestry in all cases.   It is clearly the case with places
where
*pr > *R within Mississippi Valley.  However, it is not clear that all
*R
and *W have this sort of explanation.  Perhaps they all reflect some
sort
of lost initial element preceding *w and *r.

In spite of the OP evolution of *W and *R as m and n, I don't think we
need to assume a nasal vowel in a hypothetical lost prefixal element
*CV-.
In fact, as long as we are assuming that *CV- is *wa- we would have
trouble justifying a nasal vowel here.  But we do know that there are
Siouan languages which lack nasal vowels (Hidatsa) and which nasalize
all
initial resonants, at least in principle.


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