Re: Sonority of 'h'?

Amanda Babcock a écrit :

> Does 'h' fit into the usual set of sonority classes?  In English it seems
> like it can only appear as the sole onset of a syllable.
I think it's important to distinguish phonetic and phonological properties.
For instance, flap r [4] is not a liquid in american English, whereas it
is in spanish. In French,
[R] is *phonetically* a voiced fricative (and it *phonetically*
lengthens a preceding vowel just like [v], [z] , [Z]),
but it is *phonologically* a liquid (same distribution as /l/). So I
would say that /h/ should be in your language
what you want it to be :). Phonetically, it is often viewed as the less
marked fricative (pure friction with default glottal articulation), but
"classical" phonology considers /h/ and /?/ as sonorants (Chomsky and
Halle, _The Sound Pattern of English_) since the vocal configuration is
(told to be) wide enough to have approximatively the same pressure
inside and outside the mouth. A point against /h/ and /?/ being
sonorants is that they would be the only ones that don't show up
spontaneously voiced. So it's up to you whether they should behave in
their own way or like other fricatives.

I hope this will be helpfull,

Best Regards,

Julien.