Re: The Story of Guper the Foolish Troll

At 12:02 pm -0800 28/2/99, Matt Pearson wrote:
>dunn patrick w wrote:
>
>> But ya know what?  Voiced glotal stops may be impossible, but if so, I
>>
>> deserve some money, cause I'm making one right now all *over* the damn
>>
>> place!  Guess bumblebees can't fly, either.
>
>Now, now.  No need to be sarcastic.
Thank you.

>Is it possible that when you talk
>about voiced glottal stops and glottal approximants you really mean
>voiced *pharyngeal* stops and approximants?  Pharyngeals are
>produced by constricting the pharynx, between the velum and the
>glottis.  As far as I know, voiced pharyngeal stops are found in
>certain dialects of Arabic.  Don't know about pharyngeal approximants,
>but I can certainly imagine them...
I was wondering about pharyngeals.  I get the impression dunn wants a
certain "throatiness" in the Troll language and I did half wonder why the
Arabic pharyngeals got no look in.  I knew of the voiced & voiceless
pharyngeal fricatives of standard Arabic but had not come across pharyngeal
stops. But I can see no reason why they shouldn't exist.

>
>> Glotal approximants?  Nope, I can't really make 'em either.  I can
>> *imagine* them, and come pretty close (sort of a really raspy h, mixed
>>
>> with a half a gargle).
>
>Sounds like a pharyngeal sound to me...
...but they sound more like pharyngeal fricatives to me.

[....]
>
>No one's attacking your right to have whatever sounds you want
>in your language.  Ray was just asking for clarification about the
>terminology you used to describe those sounds.
Absolutely - but it was nice to called a linguist  :)
But, like Patrick, I am _not_ a professional linguist either: a one-time
teacher of Latin & Greek and now a lecturer in Computer Science.

It was precisely because I'm not a professional linguist that I asked for
clarification.  How am I to know whether Patrick is or is not a
professional linguist.

I'd even been happy with an explanation that clarified the points I raised
by showing that, e.g. the Troll's vocal tract was different from humans and
a Troll is able to completely close its glottis (must have one to produce
glottal sounds) but is still able to vibrate its vocal chords.  Indeed, if
a Trolls anatomy is not human we could have some interesting 'impossible
for humans' sound.  But there was only a hint of this towards the end of
Patrick's reply - and, in any case, the "voiced glottal stop" is, according
to Patrick, a sound that humans can make. So what is it?

......
>I don't know.  But calling something a "voiced glottal stop" and
>leaving it at that is bound to cause confusion, since such sounds
>are alleged not to exist.  That was Ray's only point, I think.
Exactly.

>Incidentally, I found the troll story wonderfully amusing.  I
>hope you post more of them soon!
Yep - the story's fine and the twist at the end is great.

Ray.