Re: More wierd phonemes

On 22 Feb 00, at 20:53, Ed Heil wrote:

> --- Paul Bennett <paulnkathy@...> wrote:
> > I've been inspired by all the talk of phonology on
> > the lsit recently, and
> > I'm rebuilding Thagojian phonology quite
> > extensively.
> ...
> > I've also decided that the two phonemic vowels are
> > going to be
> > differentiated front-unrounded vs back-rounded
> > instead of close-unrounded
> > vs open-rounded, with deep representations /e/ and
> > /o/ replacing the
> > earlier /M/ and /Q/  (x-sampa as always...)
>
> Hey, cool!  Sounds really Proto-Indo-European!
I'm working on an additional branch of IE ("Wene-Thagojic"), most closely
related to a postulated Proto-Indo-Slavic.  The grouping is currently made
up of (in order of completeness) Wenetaic, Meynian, mQlo` and Thagojian.

The surface forms of the vowels in Thagogian are more varied than the PIE
(semi)vowels /j i e w u o/, but are all allophones rather than phonemes, ie
the original 4 (or is is 6?) phoneme PIE system appears to have collapsed
under the weight of all the extra consonants into just 2 phonemes, a
phenomenon that seems to be possibly shared with pre-mQlo`.

> > Anyway, my question is:
> >
> > Is there a natlang precedent (and/or existing name?)
> > for the 'hissing'
> > consonant (fricative?) produced by keeping the
> > tongue in a lax / schwa-like
> > position, and producing either voiced or voiceless
> > breath with the teeth
> > together and causing friction?
>
[snip]
> I believe it'd
> be called a bidental fricative.
That's the main idea I was toying with, but for some reason, the name just
wouldn't 'stick'.  Your suggestion of dento-dental was an also-ran for a
while, but got vetoed on grounds of clunkiness.  I spose I'd better see
what everyone else thinks before jumping to too many conclusions,
however...



---
Pb