Re: OT: "Tracheal" consonants: a curiosity?

You're right about the hebrew, sorry. Arabic also often avoids geminate gutterals,
but allows them time to time. I wonder if it's because they're difficault to
pronounce, or because noone wants to hear those sounds for longer than one has
to, lol.

Steg Belsky <draqonfayir@...> wrote:On Jun 7, 2005, at 3:19 AM, william drewery wrote:
>>  Epiglottal stops are the same as ejective pharangeal stops. The
>> glottis closes completely, while the tounge root retracts so far as
>> to completely seal around the epilottis. The sound is similar to a
>> forcefull glottal stop with a pharangeal offglide. In most of spoken
>> Arabic, there's the ordinary glottal stop, the voiceless pharangeal
>> fricative, a voiced pharangeal approximate for the single @ayn, and a
>> full epiglottal stop for doubled @ayn. Doubled Haa' (voiceless
>> pharangeal fricative) often has aryetenoid trilling, as well. The
>> Oriental dialects of Hebrew follow a similar pattern. Agul is the
>> only language i know of contrasting voiceless pharangeals with
>> voiceless epiglottals. But !Xoo contrast pharangealized vowels,
>> epiglottalized vowels, and creaky vowels, and also has the glottal
>> stop as a consonant.
>> William Drewery
For the single pharyngeal phonemes, sure, but Hebrew phonotactics
doesn't allow geminated gutturals, and the guttural category includes
|hhet| and |`ayin|.


-Stephen (Steg)
"i defend myself, therefore i exist."
~ herbert pagani


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