Retroflexion

[Lars Martin Fosse]

At 11:22 02.03.98 -0400, you wrote:
>In response to the post of Lars Martin Fosse:
>>
>>Just as part of the general argument, I would like to supply the information
>>that both East Norwegian and West Swedish have produced retroflexion. So
>>have some South Italian dialects. All quite independent of Skt.
>>
>
>Yes, this sort of retroflexion is frequently cited by Hock as well, both in
>the recently cited article and in his valuable book, _Principles of
>Historical Linguistics_.  But to my knowledge all of the examples that are
>cited show these retroflexes as allophonic variants of either dentals or
>alveolars, or even palatals.
>
>It seems to me that reference to such phenomena in other languages would be
>more cogent if one could produce examples of *phonemic* distinctions, not
>just allophonic ones. In Indic languages one can point to minimal pairs
>like
>
>Skt:    pAta ['flight'] vs. pATa ['portion']
>
>        [this is one of Hock's preferred examples]

Very well: At the written level, you have the following pair:

                katt    kart    (cat - map)
Pronounced:     kat     ka.t

(.rt > .t is also known from Indic)

Furthermore:    mat     malt    (food - painted, East Norw. dialect)
Pronounced:     ma:t    ma:.t

I must emphasize that such words are only minimal pairs when pronounced.
When written, historical orthography keeps them apart.

Best regards,

Lars Martin Fosse


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