Pronouncing -gn-

[Paul B. Gallagher]

Alina Israeli wrote:

>>> [The effects of native speaker consciousness are so pervasive,
>>> that my professor of linguistics/phonetics at a rather known
>>> American university some 25 year ago was telling us that the
>>> reduction of kn->n, pn ->n and gn->n is a linguistic universal,
>> 
>> Alina, do you mean that he was a native speaker of English and
>> claimed the reduction was true of English? and universalized it to
>> other languages?? Because it isn't even true of English ... 
>> (ignorant, magnanimous, igneous, acknowledge, etc.)
> 
> No, that genious in our alma mater, but in the linguistics dept (!), 
> claimed it a universal in the word initial position (cf. kniga, pneu,
> knabe, gnus' etc.).

As I understand the term "linguistic universal," it does not claim that 
all languages actually exhibit the specified behavior completely and 
instantaneously, but that it is a universal tendency; some languages 
will be less prone than others to actually carry it out. Other things 
being equal, /gn-/ and the like tend to be simplified in all languages, 
but some languages take longer and some are more resistant. In the same 
way, English is susceptible to the universal tendency to simplify /-ðz/ 
(I know many speakers who consider "clothes" and "close" homophones), 
but resists more than, say, Japanese.

So I think you may be overdramatizing his statement, or perhaps he isn't 
being clear.

-- 
War doesn't determine who's right, just who's left.
--
Paul B. Gallagher
pbg translations, inc.
"Russian Translations That Read Like Originals"
http://pbg-translations.com

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