Re: "Transferral" verb form in LC-01
From: | Tim May <butsuri@...> |
Date: | Wednesday, June 26, 2002, 21:33 |
David Peterson writes:
> <<snip and>>
>
> In a message dated 06/25/02 3:51:06 PM, butsuri@BTOPENWORLD.COM writes:
>
> << Incidentally, there are phonotactic restrictions on the triliteral
> roots of Semitic languages. The first and second consonants cannot be
> members of the same phonetic series (according to Campbell).
> Consequently, while there are over 3000 possible roots in Arabic,
> there aren't 28^3 (21952). >>
>
> Ah, yes. This I knew and forgot. And now that you've explained the
> rules, it all makes more sense. With respect to those rules, though, you do
> have one I find rather intriguing: stop-final *voicing*. That's one I've
> never heard of, though the opposite is quite common. May I ask what prompted
> it?
>
Well... when I first decided on the feature, I'd never heard of final
devoicing (I don't know much about it even now). The system pasically
arose from trying to analyse what I found easiest to pronounce and
distinguish. I think it makes more sense if you consider that most of
my unvoiced stops are aspirated and my voiced stops not; this being
the case, if a final stop isn't completely released it's likely to be
interpreted (by me) as an allophone of a voiced stop, regardless of
whether it's voiced or not. Not giving full release seems easier,
less energetic. Plus I just preferred the sound.
Do you know much about why final devoicing occurs? Are there any
languages with an aspirated/nonaspirated distinction which have final
deaspiration?
I made the stop in all fricative-stop clusters voiced too, because I
can't tell the difference in my own speech unless it's aspirated (so
it's a matter of orthography, mostly). I think at least some Celtic
languages do this.
Replies