Re: Detested sounds, was: Work in progress - Phonology

: On Tue, 18 Dec 2001 09:11:20 +1100, John-Emmanuel <jokerhand@H...>
: wrote:
:
: >And the speakers absolutely DETEST the voiced palato-alveolar and velar
: >fricatives (for some strange reason....), they just do not exist in the
: >language.
:
: Which reminds me of a question I often want to ask.
:
: There are loads of examples of natlangs borrowing phonemes (or sound
: combinations, or phonemic distinctions in certain positions) that cannot
: appear in native words.
:
: It seems that *mostly* such systemic borrowings happen when the borrowed
: combination of phonemes or phonemic features *fills some gap* in the
: original inventory.
:
: For example, consider Middle English borrowing word-initial [z], [Z],
: [dZ], and the clusters [sk], [skr], [skl]. I imagine, the mechanism could
: have worked like the following:
:
: If your language distinguishes between the affricates in _ridge_ and
: _rich_, and has words like _chin_ [tSIn], what prevents you from imitating
: the sound of some foreign word like [dZIn]?
:
: If your language has the phonemes [p], [t], [k], and [s], and allows
: the clusters [sp] and [st], who can forbid the speakers to use [sk] in
: a foreign name?
:
: Similarly, if a language (say, Old Russian) has [v], and the rest of its
: fricatives support the distinction "voiced :: voiceless", guess how
: the speakers will pronounce a foreign (say, Greek) name beginning
: with [f]?
: AZWhat kind of inner (systemic) factors (causes) do you think can support
: this type of bans?
:
: Have you ever thought about such things as "potential phonemes", with
: reference to your conlang(s)?

That raises some very interesting points.
After I posted those messages, I rethought why exactly those phonemes were
not in my inventory, and so I came with the following, reason:

In general, voice is not distinguished in fricatives.  Though there are
exceptions: [v], [D], and [j].
[v] is the only voiced fricative that is present with any frequency.  [D] is
not a frequent phoneme.
[j] is a cross between a fricative and an approximant, so doesn't
necessarily count.  And besides it isn't a frequent phoneme either.

You might also notice that there are fricatives at the most common
articulation points, extending from the labio-dental region to the velar,
and I have not let my English bias interfere with my choice of phonemes (I
hope).

I am not to fond of the [s] phoneme myself.  It is loud, vulgar, and hisses
(duh!).  However since it is so common in languages in general, and often
pronounced in non-language utterances, I have had to relent.
(Why is it so common?  Because it is one of the loudest consonants produced
by the human voice.  Why else do you say 'psst' to get someones attention?)

I also believe that voiced fricatives, produced from the alveolar region
back, are VERY ugly sounds - the sort that might be produced by trolls and
orcs - and so the speakers do not really like producing the sounds at all.
So they would also be unlikely to borrow the sounds.  And though it might be
easy enough to teach them, since over the generations they have not produced
it, it would be much harder for them to introduce it into their language.
e.g. notice now the Germans have trouble with w, and the Japanese with l?
It depends on the language.  With my language, the only sound I think that
could be borrowed without any fuss is silent [N] (as in siNG).

However, I think it might be possible to allow them sounds like the ch in
cheese [ts] as it is sort of a combination of [t] and [s].  And with respect
to the clusters (I have not fully decided which ones are possible yet), I
cannot find any reason why they should not be allowed.  If you have /sp/ and
/st/ then there is no reason why /sk/ cannot be - it is simple enough.
However, a cluster like /tl/ would be another story, even English speakers
have trouble with it ;)  Again it depends on what clusters and languages you
choose.

: Basilius

John.

Schrödinger's Cat - Wanted Dead and Alive

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