Re: What _is_ rhoticity? (wa laterals (was: Pharingials etc))

Javier BF wrote:


> If one compares several different sounds that are definitely
> r-like beyond doubt (Spanish tap and trill, English r, German
> r, Italian r, Arabic r, Russian r, English rhotic vowels...),
> it's not that difficult to extrapolate the common 'feeling'
> in those sounds which makes them similar........
Just a possible way out of this morass:  Let us suppose that all rhotics
originally start out as tapped or trilled [r], with all the acoustics
thereof-- this seems likely on the basis of Romance (trill in Ital, Span,
dialectal trill vs. uvular in Fr., trill in Portugal vs. vl.velar fric in
Brazilian), German (dialectal trill vs. velar?/uvular), and Slavic (from
what I'm told); even in Indonesian langs. (Ml/Indo trill, dial/related
langs. vd or vl. velar fric.) etc. etc.----- so however a language's /r/ is
realized, there is a sense that "this is underlying phonemic /r/" and the
speech organs act accordingly, producing lowered 3d formant (or whatever it
is that marks a "rhotic"...).  Thus I suspect a language could have an
uvular _rhotic_ fricative in addition to a non-rhotic one, and there would
be no confusion because the non-rhotic one "comes from" a different place in
phonological/psycological space.

A vd. velar fricative can be rhotic; but both Span. and Germ. have them (as
allophones of /g/) and I'm sure they're not "felt" as rhotics.

Yes, this does sound a little wacky.... but one is tired of this thread, and
perhaps one has had too many cocktails......:-))))

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