Talk:Proto-Western/Grammar

It is written that

Palato-alveolar obstruents do not occur before back vowels, nor do alveolar obstruents occur before front vowels.

But the lexicon contains a few counterexamples: on the one hand dzĩči-, sałtĩ, tʰẽʔpi, on the other džũbłi, kačʰa, meʔšu, šuwa, tyaša, ʔičʰa.

Perhaps one might try to blame the latter on alveolar + y ... although there are a few of those unchanged in the lexicon as well. 4pq1injbok 02:05, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

I think we'd best treat these rare counterexamples as the result of dialect mixing and/or borrowing from an unknown substrate language. The main point Dewrad is making with said distribution is that (most instances of) the palato-alveolar consonants are historically derived from alveolar ones in palatalizing environments, which can still be supported by the morphological alternation between these POA.

(Incidentally, among the additional PW roots I coined for the Tmaśareʔ lexicon there are three further deviant items: *šaʔẽ ‘mind, character, personality’, *kleʔšu- ‘appear’, and *lawtʰe- ‘widespread, common’.)

Cedh 10:46, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

Sure, of course these words can be explained. I didn't mean to suggesting changing the lexicon, esp. given that changes would have to be propagated forward (though I suppose my last sentence did point that way). But in the strict sense this is an error in the grammar documentation; the sentence ought to say "in the main" or "except in cases of dialect mixing" vel sim. 4pq1injbok 14:33, 12 March 2012 (UTC)