Re: Here we go loup-garou

In the last episode, (On Tuesday 10 July 2007 15:05:54), T. A. McLeay wrote:
> Jeff Rollin wrote:
> > I know there are languages which don't have voiced consonants, like
> > Finnish (except approximants, which appear to be always voiced; from
> > loans; and /d/, which is regarded as somewhat artificial and replaced by
> > various phonemes in non-standard dialects), but are there any languages
> > which have voiced consonants but no voiced ones at all?
>
> I assume you mean "but are there any languages which have voiced
> consonants but no voiceLESS ones at all?".
>
> No. If a language has no voicing distinction, then you will almost
> always find a situation in which initial and final obstruents are
> voiceless, and intervocallic ones may be allophonically voiced. This is
> because (a) the pressure in your lungs needs to be a certain amount
> greater than that of your oral cavity for voicing to occur, but blocking
> the air from escaping while forcing air from your lungs into your mouth
> causes the pressure to equalise --- this makes it hard to voice stops
> and (b) because to pronounce a fricative you need to force a lot of air
> through a small space (otherwise you either get no air coming through
> and a stop, or you get air passing through cleanly and you get an
> approximant), but vibrating your vocal chords makes it harder to obtain
> this critical level --- this makes it hard to fricate while voicing.
>
> Note that these two process work in opposite ways: It is hard to vibrate
> your vocal chords while making a stop; but it is hard to make a
> fricative while vibrating your vocal chords. This explains why in many
> languages, voiced fricatives are often pronounced as approximants.
>
> So in order to have a language in which only voiced consonants occurred,
> either the speakers would need to be doing something harder than to
> include voiceless consonants (and would therefore quickly include
> voiceless consonants into their repertoire either allophonically or
> phonemically); or else the language will lack obstruents entirely and
> have only vowels and sonorants.
>
> A language with no obstruents is exceedingly unlikely because it makes
> the hearer's job a lot harder. Nasals and laterals at different points
> of articulation are distinguished by what frequencies are *missing*
> rather than which ones are *present*, and so they sound a lot more
> similar (notice how hard it is to clearly say "*em*, not *en*"). Central
> approximants are much harder to keep apart from vowels, being
> essentially vowels in a part of a syllable designated for consonants.
> I'm not sure what, if anything, is wrong with taps, as they are
> essentially voiced stops pronounced so quickly that the difficulty of
> maintaining voicing doesn't come up, but precisely because of this I
> suppose you'd be better able to hear it if you took longer to say it and
> turned it into a proper voiced stop.
>
> (Australian Aboriginal languages often use d, rd, dj, g for /t t` c k/;
> this is as much due to the (Australian) English pronunciation of
> /t _ tS k/ (which are aspirated) and /d _ dZ g/ (which are unvoiced or
> voiced only lightly before stressed vowels) as the Aboriginal
> pronunciations.)
>
> If you meant "but are there any language which have voiceLESS consonants
> but no voiced ones at all", this would entail the absence of sonorant
> consonants and allophonic intervocalic vocing. I'm not sure whether or
> not any language does the former, and in the absence of a voicing
> distinction I'd be surprised if the latter occurred. I wouldn't rule it
> out (like I would the other way), but I don't know of any.
>
> HTH,
Thanks, that was a really clear explanation. And yes I did mean the first of
the two possibilities you posited.

FWIW I think there are Aust Abor languages that lack /s/, but I don't know if
any lack all sonorants - if /s/ is an example of what you mean by sonorant.

Jeff
--
"Please understand that there are small
European principalities devoted to debating
Tcl vs. Perl as a tourist attraction."

                            -- Cameron Laird

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