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Re: Nasal semivowels/fricatives?

From:Nik Taylor <fortytwo@...>
Date:Saturday, February 12, 2000, 1:22
Markus Miekk-oja wrote:
> if approximants *are* more or less vowels, then they should have > the ability to be nasal, wouldn't they?
Yep. In fact, I've read of a language where nasalization spreads forward from a nasal consonant until it hits a fricative or stop [IIRC, I might be mistaken on the details], so that something that is phonemically /kanajate/ would be phonetically [kana~j~a~te]. But, I doubt that there are any langs that have phonemic nasalized approximates.
> According to the same debate, fricatives / approximants are very close to > each others, articulatorily, so the same should be possible for fricatives, > wouldn't it?
Probably. I think I remember reading that some dialects of Irish use /v~/ for {mh}. -- "If the stars should appear one night in a thousand years, how would men believe and adore, and preserve for many generations the remembrance of the city of God!" - Ralph Waldo Emerson ICQ: 18656696 AIM Screen-Name: NikTailor