Does anyone out there know if there are any languages that have word- or syllable-initial /s/-clusters where the /s/ is followed by an aspirated voiceless stop (e.g. [sph-])?
Does anyone out there know if there are any languages that have word- or syllable-initial /s/-clusters where the /s/ is followed by an aspirated voiceless stop (e.g. [sph-])?
In Sanskrit, for one, aspiration is contrastive on s_V obstruents (only voiceless ones occur in that context) both word-initially and elsewhere. For example, there is a minimal pair in the simple present tense conjugation of “to be”:
stah “they (dual) are”
sthah “you (dual) are”
You also find #sphV (vs. #spV), etc. skhV- is marginal, however, commonly occurring in only one root, skhal- (“stumble, totter” [post-Vedic only]).
Here are some fun token frequencies of the relevant word-initial sequences from an Epic Sanskrit corpus (many of the actual examples in this corpus are obscured by sandhi, but these results, which count only #sCV sequences after orthographic spaces, should still be roughly indicative of the token frequencies in the language):
spV 620 : #sphV 190
stV 754 : #sthV 3218
skV 240 : #skhV 14
Most examples of #sth- are from the root sthA- “stand” (cognate with the English).
Living or dead?
In ancient Greek, there are numerous words with #σφ- /#spʰ-/: link
fewer with #σθ- /#stʰ-/: link
lots again in #σχ- /#skʰ-/: link
Likewise in Sanskrit (#sth- seems more common than #sph- or #skh-). You can do a substring search of the Cologne Digital Sanskrit Dictionary <webapps.uni-koeln.de/tamil/>.
How about in English? ‘s possible.
Really, ACW? [p] is nowhere near as aspirated in ‘s possible as it is in possible … for me, anyway.
Hmm … I’m willing to bet that Lisa’s post was motivated by watching this.
Ahhh, Eric, you think too highly of me. Truth be told, I haven’t been keeping up since the summer.
It just came up in a class, and I didn’t know the answer, so I thought I’d put it out there…
Damn. I keep losing bets on this blog!
Eric–what were you smoking to even be able to find the ‘this’ you referenced?
I’ve been hooked on homestarrunner.com cartoons for ages now. No smoking required.
Eastern Armenian has word-initial s followed by aspirated stops, as in the word sp’jurrk’ “diaspora”, where the apostrophe represents aspiration and the rr = a trilled r.