Re: New Language, minimal phonology

At 11:16 am -0600 26/2/00, Daniel A. Wier wrote:
>>From: andrew <hobbit@...>
>
>>I found myself pronouncing "tama-at" as /tama?at/ which would introduce
>>a seventh consonant.  Two options come to mind: either vowel length
>>(tama-at pronounced /tama:t/); or consonant insertion (*tama-k-at).
>
>Yeah, same thing happens in Hawaiian; consecutive vowels separated by an
>"automatic" glottal stop.  Twelve letters, thirteen phonemes.
>
>Theoretically, wouldn't every language in the world have a glottal stop in
>its inventory?
No.

Some French speakers use it to avoid liaison where a word begin with "h
aspirate"; e.g. one would pronounce 'avec elle' as [avE'kEl], but 'avec
haine' is [avEk'E:n], i.e. the second syllable is blocked and the last
begins with a vowel.  But some speakers insert a weak glottal consonant,
either [avEk'?E:n] or even [avEk'hE:n].  The use of a glottal is never
recommended to foreigners lerarning French since (a) it is by ni means
universal French usage, and (b) there is then a tendency by non-French
speakers to use [?] where no francophone would use it, e.g. "j'ai eu"
[Ze'y], "Moïse [mo'iz], i.e. it is _not_ 'automatically' used to separate
vowels in hiatus.

In the languages of southern Europe vowels in hiatus are not
'autommatically' separated by [?] and, I suspect, not only these but quite
a large number of the worlds languages do not include a glottal stop in
their inventory.

Ray.

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A mind which thinks at its own expense
will always interfere with language.
                   [J.G. Hamann 1760]
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