Re: rhotics

In the last episode, (On Friday 06 July 2007 15:45:44), R A Brown wrote:
> taliesin the storyteller wrote:
> > * R A Brown said on 2007-07-06 11:07:06 +0200
> >
> >>According to the IPA chart, a velar trill is not a possible
> >>sound (the square is not left empty, it is clearly blacked
> >>out). So what are the 'many raspy replacements'?
> >
> > Any rhotic that is not an alveolar trill, further back than the
> > alveoli and not a tap/flap. That is: /x/, /G/, /X/, /R/, /X\/,
> > /?\/, /R\/ and maybe also /r\'/. Or in UTF8: xɣχʁħʕʀɻ.
>
> I make that six fricatives (velar, uvular & pharyngeal, both voiced &
> unvoiced), the uvular trill and maybe also the retroflex approximant.
>
> > Now maybe it's time to start the big debate about what, really,
> > does it mean that something is rhotic? :)
>
> I note the smiley. Yes, this has been aired many a time (probably in
> some people's opinion ad_nauseam) on this list as a quick look in the
> archives will show.
>
> The list of sounds you give for the most part has post-palatal friction
> in common, which IMO can fairly be described as a "raspy replacement." I
> guess the glottal fricatives are not included as, indeed, these are far
> less raspy and, as we know from the many examples in natlangs, they have
> a distinct tendency to fall silent.
>
> The uvular trill is close enough to the the uvular fricatives to be
> regarded, I think, as a 'special case of raspiness'   :)
>
> The only sound above which, surely, lacks raspiness is the retroflex
> approximant. I know retroflex consonants are sometimes called rhotic,
> but this seems to me a different sort of rhoticity to 'many raspy
> replacements' of the putative velar trill    ;)
>
> But it seems I was not the only one a bit puzzled by your original
> definition, since:
> ----------------
>
> taliesin the storyteller wrote:
>  > * John Vertical said on 2007-07-06 09:03:14 +0200
>
> [snip]
>
>  >>If I have the description of this sound right (the proper term
>  >>is "velopharyngeal trill" BTW - or "velarized uvular trill")
>  >
>  > That'd be a wrong guess :)
>
> At least John made a guess, unlike me   :)
>
>  >>I'd actually prefer to use a digraph.
>  >
>  > It *is* a double sound, yes.
>
> I thought it was, but as no-one suggested this, I was not entirely sure.
> As it is a double sound, I must agree with John: I would prefer a digraph.
>
>  > The first part varies with dialect,
>  > the second part does not, though there are people that *do*
>  > replace the entire kaboodle with a velarized/pharyngealized
>  > trill but that's *most* improper and foreign.
>
> Presumably a velarized or pharyngealized apical trill?
>
> But even so, if the single sound (whatever it is) is "improper and
> foreign", then it seems to me to present a greater case for a digraph or
> at least a ligature.
Again, I must respectfully disagree. In general, I detest digraphs. The only
excuses for them, in my view, are either that they are used in the same or a
similar way as those in the language of the conlanger's intended audience
(for example, I assume that the audience for most people on this list would
consist of English speakers, in the main, so using "ch" for a sound like that
in "chutney" is ok), OR the reading is intuitive - thus using "h" for
aspirates, etc. If anyone thinks I'm wrong on the following issue, fair
enough, but personally a digraph with "x" (which is afaik the only one that's
been mooted so far) doesn't tell me anything :-/ . Another argument against
them would be if the transcription/orthography used also uses those letters
as sequences of phonemes. (For example, using "ch" both for the sequence /kh/
and for, say, /tS/.)

 This can sometimes not be avoided, but it can be minimized.

Before I get off my soapbox, on the subject of using
transcriptions/orthographies that are similar to those used in the native
language of the audience, I wouldn't be at all surprised if someone reading a
book with the proportion of conlang in it that the LOTR films had, for
example, would either be turned off by it, or would be sufficiently
annoyed/savvy about the oddness of English orthography that, for example, NOT
using "a" for /ei/ would be somewhere between acceptable and a godsend. Not
that this applies to anyone on this list, I should think, but personally I
think there's nothing worse in fantasy than authors whose only concession to
conworlding are names like "dZef" and "Al@n" given funny spellings
like "Geoffe" and "Aellyn".

2 cents? I reckon that's about £10 :-/

Jeff
--
"Please understand that there are small
European principalities devoted to debating
Tcl vs. Perl as a tourist attraction."

                            -- Cameron Laird

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