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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

John Cowan <jcowan@...>
Ray Brown <ray.brown@...>USAGE voicing and aspiration (was: "Transferral" verb form in LC-01)