Re: The World Atlas of Language Structures

Paul Bennett said on 2008-04-26 04:52:13 +0200
> http://www.wals.info/
Thanks a lot for that reference!

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". I'll see whether I can find some of the
references cited for that feature.

Of cource, generalizations like these are inevitable in such a kind of
publication, but after all, they don't diminish the benefit. Quite the
contrary, the main benefit lies precisely in the generalizations. But also
in the detailed discussions of the many features.

---
grüess
mach