Funny W

[Rory M Larson]

Thanks, John!  That was very informative, and encouraging.

The thought that has been floating around in my head for a while is that
the *W and *R make up a series that could be defined as full stops that are
initially released through the nose rather than through the mouth.  These
could be considered either single phonemes or clusters.  Considered as
clusters, we would write them as *W = pm and *R = tn.  (Voicing would not
be an issue.  Actual pronunciation might be anywhere from bm/dn to pm/tn to
pm^/tn^, where m^ and n^ are defined as the voiceless equivalents of m and
n.)  Considered as single phonemes, the effect would be rather like a
person with a cold trying to hit m or n, and taking just a moment before
sufficient pressure builds up to force a passage through the nasal
sinusses.

I think this model explains the daughter language reflexes we find more
naturally than any other.  Postulating any kind of w for the Dhegihan
*Wa/*aWa' sets seems a bit out in left field, because all the reflexes
involve full labial closure.  For other single phonemes, as you say, the
territory is crowded.  The mb and nd clusters you suggest make the most
sense, but if that were the case I should think we would get those
epenthetically everywhere a nasal vowel precedes a stop.

A nasally released stop set would not conflict with anything else.
Phonotactically, it would be very easy to get either ama' or apa'/aba' from
*apma'.  In the former case, the speakers would simply open the nasal
passage a little bit earlier, which would prevent the stop from occurring,
yielding ama'.  In the latter case, they would open the oral passage
earlier, before the nasal passage was opened, to produce an orally released
stop preceding an oral vowel, which would eliminate the reason for opening
the nasal passage at all.  In either case, the resulting consonant would be
more quickly and easily rendered than the heavily-marked original, and
would immediately merge with a pre-existing consonant phoneme (m or p/b).

This would also mesh fairly comfortably with the *pr cluster you mention as
being sometimes ancestral to *R.  The key here is that we have a
stop+sonant cluster, just as pre-existing nasally released stops are
stop+sonant clusters.  The latter are "clusters" at a single location
(labial or alveolar), while *pr is a definite cluster in which the stop is
labial and the sonant is alveolar.  I would picture the Dhegihan
development of this to be: *pr => *pn (r takes on full oral closure along
with p, phonotactically equivalent to the double stop sequence pt, but
maintains sonant quality by allowing voice to exit through the nose during
alveolar closure).  Next, double stop sequences are lost.  The second stop
takes on the stop function of the first stop, as the first stop is reduced
to h.  Thus, *pt => *htt (both preaspirated and tense), while *pn => *htn
(p => h, but forces the following alveolar closure to take on its initial
stop function).  The *tn part of that is identical to the pre-existing *R,
a nasally released alveolar stop, and *htn/*hR eventually merges into
*tn/*R in all daughter languages.

Finally, if we picture *W and *R as the clusters *pm and *tn, and if the
original language had *m and *n (not sure about this) but not eng, then the
picture of *W and *R being originally merged phonemes, oral stop + nasal
consonant in the same location, would explain why we don't find "funny"
consonants in the velar area.

I don't know how well this model fits across Siouan, but I think it works
pretty well with the Dhegihan and Dakotan cases that you've mentioned.  Any
thoughts?

Rory
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