Re: Questions about and suggestions for (C)XS

On Saturday, August 7, 2004, at 01:30 , Trebor Jung wrote:
[snip]

> And why is there a separate symbol for voiceless /w/? The distinction
> between /w/ and /W/ is rare in natlangs AFAIK, so why does it deserve its
> own symbol? After all, voiceless [m] and [n] f'rinstance don't have their
> own symbols and they're phonemic (AFAIK) in Welsh.
No they're not - at least, not as far the Welsh themselves feel it.

If they were considered or intuitively felt to be phonemes, then the Welsh
alphabet would count 'mh', 'nh' & 'ngh' as separate 'letters' in the same
way that. e.g. the digraphs 'ch', 'dd', 'ff', 'ng' etc are reckoned as
single letters. In fact the combos |mh|, |nh| and |ngh| are pronounced [mh]
, [nh] and [Nh] respectively, i.e. biphonemic combinations.

Are there, in fact, any natlangs where voiceless nasals are phonemically
distinct from their voiced counterparts?
Ray
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