Re: Phonological terminology question

From: "Garth Wallace" <gwalla@...>

> Looking at the IPA/X-SAMPA chart, I see sections for "pulmonic" and
> "non-pulmonic" consonants. What does that mean?
Lemme try... pulmonic consonants (and vowels) involve movement of air to and
from the lungs. The vast majority of sounds in the world's languages are
pulmonic egressive, that is uttered while breathing outward. Pulmonic
ingression is involved in a "gasp", but I know of no natural languages with
pulmonic ingression.

After pulmonic, glottalic consonants are next in order of frequency. The
most common is glottalic egressive, the consonants known as "ejective",
found in languages as diverse as Amharic, Georgian, Navajo, Quechua and
<shameless conlang plug>Tech</shameless conlang plug>. These involve
pressure caused by a closure and raising of the glottis in the lower throat
region, then a release of pressure at first the oral articulation (labial,
dental, velar etc.) then the glottis. But glottal ingressive, or "implosive"
consonants can be found, mostly in African languages like Hausa, Somali and
Swahili, as well as other languages like Sindhi and Khmer. The glottis is
lowered, creating a suction in the upper throat and mouth. Voiced implosives
are more common than voiceless.

The clicks of Khoisan languages in southern Africa are classified as "velar
ingressive", meaning that there is closure at the soft or rear palate as
well as another stop at the dental, alveolar, palatal/retroflex and lateral
position (but there are also bilabial clicks and I don't know how these are
produced). The front of the tongue is released just before the back,
creating a vacuum then a "click" sound. These are also the sounds of
"giddy-up" and "tsk-tsk".

Finally, there are buccal egressives (air released from the cheeks, the
speech of Donald Duck) and gastric egressive (BURP!!).

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