Re: nasalless and stopless language

On Wed, 19 Jul 2000, SMITH,MARCUS ANTHONY wrote:

> On Wed, 19 Jul 2000, Joe Mondello wrote:
>
> > where P is a voiceless bilabial fricative (or is it F?).  So is there a
> > reason for the universality of plosives and near-universality f nasals, or
> > can a language survive without them?
>
> I don't think there is anything inherent to Language that requires
> plosives and nasals.  My personal opinion on why plosives are universal is
> that they are maximally distinct from vowels.  Vowels tend to be
> voiced, continuous while plosives are discontinuous and voiceless.
Exactly. They are also exceedingly easy to produce. To make one, you
only have to throw one articulator against another. Fricatives require
much more precise control.

> I don't mean to say the all plosives are voiceless, but they are during
> the time when the air-flow is cut off, since the vocal cords can't vibrate
> if there is no air movement.
Not true. If a stop is held long enough then sure, they will of
necessity become voiceless for the very reason you state. This is a
reason why voiced geminate stops are not as common as voiceless
geminate stops. However, there are lots of tricks which can be
employed to prolong airflow, even when the oral cavity is completely
occluded. These tricks include:

1)  lowering the larynx
2)  expanding the walls of the oral cavity (puffing out the cheeks)
3)  allowing air to leak through a slightly opened velum

Tricks 1 and 2 effectively increase the volume of the supralaryngeal
space; trick 3 allows an escape hatch for the building pressure. All
three of these tricks can be employed to produce genuine voiced stops.

> Along the same line, I suppose that nasals are so common because of the
> resonance they pick up while escaping through the nasal passage rather
> than the mouth.  The nasality adds distinction to them.
Exactly. Also, lowering the velum is another easy maneuver. In both
cases (oral stops and nasals) you get a lot of perceptual bang for the
articulatory buck.

Dirk

--
Dirk Elzinga
dirk.elzinga@m.cc.utah.edu