Re: Labiopalatalization

Hi!

Remi Villatel <maxilys@...> writes:
> Henrik Theiling wrote:
>...
> > What about turning [A] into a pharyngeal semivowel (maybe [?\], but
> > that's the fricative.  It still sometimes sounds like an approximant,
> > but there is no CXS, I think)? :-)  I personally find pharyngeals
> > quite interesting.
>
> If I'm not wrong, that should be [A_?\] but I don't think that's possible.
> There should be a reason why all semi-vowel are a variant from a closed vowel.
Hm.  But when you pharyngealise [A] (or [a]), you get a narrowing in
the throat (instead of at a (labio-)palatal or a labio-velar one), of
course.  I don't think it's that different, but maybe there are clear
definitions of semi-vowels that I am violating with these thoughts.

> My theory is that when your mouth is opened, all you can do is to close it
> and produce a diphtongue, so from an opened vowel to a closed vowel. And the
> semi-vowels are just the opposite, from a closed vowel to an opened vowel.
Hmm, in Arabic words like /mu?\al:im/ ('teacher') or /ma?\a:bid/
('temple'), the ?\ really sounds like a semi-vowel to me.

To get back to the point of having really weird semi-vowels, I could
imaging a labialised version like [&\_?\] would be cool. :-)

**Henrik