Re: Lateralization

On Wed, Nov 22, 2000 at 11:18:24PM +0000, Keith Alasdair Mylchreest wrote:
> I'm not sure if this answers your question, but I've been trying to sort
> out the protosemitic consonants, putting together two sources.
Thanks, Keith -- I find the Semitic sound changes fascinating -- but this
wasn't exactly what I was getting at. I was asking what kinds of sounds
lateralized sounds turn into and evolve from. I assume that it's not
uncommon for them to evolve from a juxtaposition of two phones, one being a
lateral such as [l], which later merge, but I'm wondering where they would
go from there.

Apparently it's possible for laterals and lateral fricatives to lose their
lateralization and become fricatives, as shown in the Semitic languages and
in Raymond's example of Armenian:

Raymond Brown wrote:
> Armenian _a£ot'k'_ [aGot_hk_h] "prayer"
[snip]
> [£ is the best I could do for _l_ with a bar through it, which is the
> traditional transcription of the sound now pronounced as a voiced velar
> fricative in modern Armenian]
I've also heard of simple lateral sounds becoming stops, as in Sardinian.
But I'm interested in sounds such as stops and fricatives which also have a
lateral element.

Once again, Keith wrote:
> I'm not sure I entirely believe this, [t']
> I can manage, a stop with double articulation, alveolar and glottal, but
> [(t)s'] ? and [T'] ?? let alone [hl'], I can't see how you can be making a
> stop in one part of the vocal tract and a sibilant/fricative in another
I have a real hard time with those too, but I've been assured that they do
exist. I try to approximate them by pronouncing e.g. [s] with [?]
immediately afterwards (sometimes I put the glottal stop before _and_ after
it, which I intuit might be closer to the real thing, but I'm not sure).
Apparently it's possible for laterals and lateral fricatives to lose their
lateralization and become fricatives (as shown in Semitic langs and
Armenian)

> Hebrew /hl/ is 'sin' that is a 'shin' /S/ with a dot top left rather than
> top right. Since the points are a rather late addition to Hebrew writing
> can we be sure that this distinction really exited, and if it did that 'sin'
> actually stood for a lateral fricative? (Could be serious if you're called
> Sarah, sorry Hlarah!).
I don't know of anyone who's said that sin was pronounced as a voiceless
lateral during the time when Hebrew's been written. It's usually listed as
simply /s/ AFAIK.

--
Eric Christopherson / *Aiworegs Ghristobhorosyo