Some dental clusters in Tai

Extract

In 1954 I published an article on consonant clusters in Tai, in which a number of clusters such as etc., were reconstructed for Proto-Tai. Some of them are preserved in some modern dialects, and some others have since been found to exist in the Saek language. However, not all clusters can be attested in the modern languages, and this is particularly true for the dental clusters. In the case of labial or velar clusters, namely a labial or velar consonant followed by a liquid, a small number of the languages preserve at least some of the clusters, such as Siamese, Ahom, Wuming, etc., but in the case of dental clusters hardly any modern language preserves such clusters. Saek is the only language which shows dental clusters, tl- and tr- according to Haudricourt (1963, 158) but tl-, tr-, thl-, and thr- according to Gedney (1970, 74). However, most of these clusters do not seem to go back to Proto-Tai dental clusters, but rather to velar clusters. Siamese has tr-, but it occurs mainly in Sanskrit and Cambodian loans. Thus the reconstruction of dental clusters is far more difficult than that of other clusters.