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Re: Betreft: Re: Jaars IPA Helper

From:Paul Bennett <paulnkathy@...>
Date:Thursday, January 13, 2000, 13:00
On 13 Jan 00, at 13:39, Christophe Grandsire wrote:

> At 13:14 13/01/00 +0100, you wrote: > >At first I didn't knew too. Then I was told that Chinese (Mandarin) had > >distinction unvoiced-aspirated. > >Later I was told about the Dutch /z/, then I started taking notice. > >Now I can hear the difference, but it is very difficult to hear. > > > Oh! Now I think I can see what you're talking about. It's a distinction I > hardly hear too but that I noticed with 'v' in Dutch, and that I hear as a > mid-point between voiced and voiceless. >
Doesn't Thai do something like this? I've only ever read a holiday phrasebook, but ISTR the book refered in it's pronounciation guide to two (or more?) series of three stops {p,b and bp} and {t, d and dt} which by the description sound like three levels of voicing. I tried that distinction in the early days of both Wenetaic and Thagojian, but it lasted about 7 minutes in each of them. It felt like too much trouble (or something -- How any distinction could be too fine for Thagojian (currently at about 300 phonemes and holding, most of them consonants) is beyond me <G>). While we're on wierd consonant distinctions, mQlo` has the distinction stop/click instead of voiced/unvoiced. There is also phonemic prenasalisation and/or lateralisation. The prenasalised- clicks are realised as simultaneous bilabial+original POA clicks. --- Pb