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Re: The World Atlas of Language Structures

From:J. 'Mach' Wust <j_mach_wust@...>
Date:Tuesday, April 29, 2008, 11:24
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