On Sun, Sep 02, 2001 at 12:01:41PM -0600, Jesse Bangs wrote:
> > Is there really a relation between rhoticity and retroflexion?
>
> Not necessarily.  Retroflexion is only one of the ways to create a rhotic
> sound.

Ok. I'm just wondering why it is they're marked with the same diacritic (`)
in X-SAMPA (perhaps SAMPA too?).

Now, if a vowel is retroflex (putting aside for the moment the question of
whether it is rhotic or not), does that mean anything more than just that
the vowel is a ways back? I suppose the tongue would be curled, as in
consonants.

> > What are some known kinds of sound changes that occur with rhotics
> (i.e.
> > what types of sounds become rhotic, and what types of sounds come
> > from rhotics)?
>
> Well, I already mentioned *s > r, which occurs in Latin and the ancient
> Germanic languages, as well as others, I'm sure.  If the language does
> not have both a rhotic and a lateral, those classes of sounds may switch
> back and forth.  In many languages, like (I'm pretty sure) Korean, a
> rhotic and a lateral are allophones of the same phoneme.  The voiced
> uvular fricative is virtually identical to the uvular trill, which is a
> rhotic.  And it's not impossible for the change *n > r to occur, a change
> which occurred in the history of my conlang.

Ok. Those are all changes I already knew about, but thanks for the summary
all the same. And in one of my current conlangs, *n > r is a regular change
as well :)

Also,
On Sun, Sep 02, 2001 at 03:39:51PM -0700, Barry Garcia wrote:
> [log in to unmask] writes:
> > And it's not impossible for the change *n > r to occur, a change
> >which occurred in the history of my conlang.
>
> I'm not sure if this is a good example, but in my conlang, instead of
> going the mbr route from mn (as in Spanish), montreiano went: mn > nn > nr
> > ndr. Example of n becoming rhotic?
>
> culmine > culmne > cunne > cunre > cundre

That's pretty cool :) I've always struggled with what to do with those /mn/
clusters, since I don't like the way Spanish did it and most other
alternatives don't appeal to me either. I do like nr > ndr though. In
Montreiano, does that develop the same as reflexes of Latin /nr/ (from nVr
with loss of vowel)? E.g.: Latin generu > *jenro > yerno (in Spanish).

Anyway, I would say your example is one of /n/ becoming rhotic.

--
Eric Christopherson, a.k.a. Contrarian Conlanger Rakko ^_^