Re: Mystery Phoneme

Caleb Hines wrote:

> What would you call the following sound. I made it up, and am thinking
> about using it in Akathanu.
>
> In contrast to a normal /t/ which is made with the tip of the tonge above
> and behind the upper teeth, the mystery sound is produced by bracing the
> tip of the tongue behind the lower teeth and raising the middle of the
> tongue to the same point that the tip would touch in a normal /t/ (or maybe
> slightly further back). The resulting sound is softer than /t/, and sounds
> slightly different in spoken speech. It is still a voiceles stop,
> articulated in roughly the same place as /t/, but with a different part of
> the tongue. Is there such a thing, or is there any reason to believe that a
> human natlang might have this sound as distinct from /t/ (or is it even a
> case of ANADEW?). Has anyone else used it in a conlang?
I'd say it's a laminal alveolar stop. I believe some Australian languages have
it.