Re: The World Atlas of Language Structures

>On Mon, 28 Apr 2008 06:39:54 -0400, John Vertical wrote:
>>...Altho alike to the Spanish issue, I'm also spotting other little
>>weirdities, like including /T D/ in Dahalo but *not* in Arabic... OK, they
>>use Egyptian Arabic so it's technically correct, but seems a bit misleading.
>
>I understand that Spanish voiced obstruents may be considered fricatives
>since that's what their most common allophone is. I rather wonder what
>analysis makes Finnish have a "Voicing contrast in both plosives and
>fricatives", where "voicing contrast" means a difference that "is in the
>accompanying action of the larynx".
>grüess
>mach
The kind of an analysis where one relies on older literature that doesn't
distinguish vricativs from approximants, or just plain assumes that
orthographic <v> is one of the former, I bet.

…Actually, I just found something that's off the outrageousness charts and
firmly into ridiculosity. Abkhaz, according to them, apparently has a
"Small" consonant inventory. :)
( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abkhaz_phonology )

I sent them a comment, let's see if that yields anything.

John Vertical

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