proto-southwestern-tai revised: a new reconstruction - seals 22

134 Pittayawat Pittayaporn
Table 12: Clusters consisting of a stop plus a liquid in PSWT
labial velar
*Cʰ-
*C- *-l- *pl- *kl-
*C -
*bl- *gl-
*Cʰ- *kʰr-
*C- *-r-
*C -
*br- *gr-
Two opposing interpretations are consistent with SWT data. The first interpretation
is that PSWT aspirated clusters developed secondarily from a PT perspective. That is, PT
only had unaspirated clusters but some of these clusters acquired aspiration under influence
of medial *-r-, i.e. PT *kr- > PSWT kʰr-. Another interpretation is that PT only had
aspirated clusters whose aspiration was lost in PSWT due to the presence of the following
medial *-l-, i.e. PT *kʰl- > PSWT kl-. According to both interpretations, the gaps in the
sub-system of initial clusters are results of changes that impacted the symmetry of PT
phonotactics. Although the correct interpretation can only be identified by investigating
this issue from a wider Tai perspective, the change from PT *kr- > PSWT kʰr- seems to be
more plausible from a typological point of view. Aspiration of stops induced by medial -r-
is attested in Tai Yuan (preliminary analysis based on data from Wichiankhiaw 1996) and
the colloquial Phnom Penh dialect of Khmer (Wayland and Guion 2005)
3.3 Scarcity of uvular consonants
PSWT consonant inventory can be characterized as having a rich set of distinctive places
of articulation and a four-way contrast in phonation-type. Among the six places of
articulation, the uvular series have not been reconstructed before as discussed in section
2.3. PSWT etyma reconstructed with uvular initials largely match up with those proposed
by Haudricourt (1952) and Ostapirat (2007) who concluded that PT had uvular
consonants. This suggests that PSWT uvular consonants were inherited from PT. However,
only two uvular consonants have been proposed for PSWT: *q- and *χ-. This observed
scarcity of uvular consonants must be directly related to the reconstruction of PT.
There are three possible explanations for the gaps in the uvular series. The first one
is to simply view the empty slots as systematic gaps the phonology of PT and PSWT. That
is, back places of articulation cross-linguistically tend to have fewer contrasts when
compared to more front series. This would make the uvular series parallel to the laryngeal
place of articulations, where only the voiceless stop*ʔ- and the voiceless fricative *h-
existed in PSWT and PT. The second possible explanation is that these gaps resulted from
mergers that eliminate certain PT uvular consonants. In other words, more uvular
consonants may have existed but some had merged with other sounds before the PSWT
stage. For example, aspirated *qʰ- may have existed in PT but had merged with *kʰ- or *χ-
before the time of PSWT. A seemingly incompatible explanation is that the uvular series is
more conservative than more front places of articulation. That is, there were splits in other
places of articulation that created contrasts that did not exist in PT. Hypothetically, PT*pr-
may have become PSWT (*pʰr- >)*pʰ- but PT *qr- became *kr- then *kʰr-. This way, no
new phonation-type or manner contrast were created in the uvular series.