Re: Arabic Questions

On Sun, 26 Sep 2004 12:32:26 +0200, Steg Belsky <draqonfayir@...>
wrote:

>On Sep 26, 2004, at 12:54 PM, Isaac A. Penzev wrote:
>> It occurs to me that in a language
>>> with contrastive initial /?/::/0/, it might be the onset of
>>> /0/-initial
>>> words??  Since IIRC you're familiar with both Arabic and Hawaiian, am
>>> I
>> more
>>> or less right?
>
>> In Arabic (as most other Semitic lgs, e.g. Biblical Hebrew) V-initial
>> syllables are impossible, so there is no /?/::/0/ contrast.
>> In Hawaiian (as well as in her sister lgs), there is such opposition,
>> tho i don't recall minimal pairs from head now. I find this feature
>> especially difficult, because smth makes me to pronounce all words in a
>> certain lg either with the glottal stop, or without it - just compare
>> English and German.
>
>I thought Arabic does have vowel-initial words, hence the opposition
>between alif-hamza and plain alif.
Would this mean that there can be a three way distinction: /?/ - /?\/ - /0/?

gry@s:
j. 'mach' wust

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