Re: Some questions on phonology

Den 14. okt. 2008 kl. 14.50 skreiv John Vertical:

> But take one look at chimpanzees, and they certainly seem
> to still use their larynxes a lot...
 From the recorded chimp speech I found on the net once, I thought I
could discern the following sounds:

An unvoiced glottal fricative (h).
A voiced bilabial something, apparently fricative (B).
A voiced uvular fricative (R).
Something palatal, apparently an approximant (j).

And that's it for consonants.

Vowels are nearly always back, but there are distinctly unrounded and
rounded ones, and the rounded ones may be more or less open (a, o, u).

The mama call seems to be distinctly fronted, though (e).

Very limited repertoire. But they get by.

LEF