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Re: Ejectives, was Re: New H/G lang?

From:Kristian Jensen <kljensen@...>
Date:Wednesday, October 13, 1999, 21:59
Ed Heil wrote:

>At least according to my book on phonetics (Catford), an ejective is >produced by closing the glottis, and raising it to produce pressure in >the vocal cavity. > >Now, the nasal passage is not affected by a closed glottis, which is
I'm not sure what you mean by the nasal passage not affected by a=20 closed glottis, but it is definitely possible for a constricted=20 glottis to affect nasal consonants. E.g., creaky voiced nasals.
>the point of being able to close the glottis -- it allows one to >swallow without getting food in one's lungs.
Strictly speaking, that's not the glottis that does that. Its the=20 epiglottis. The glottis is the chords in the larynx that vibrates=20 when we talk, the epiglottis is the piece of flesh above the larynx=20 that covers the larynx when we swallow.
>Since a nasal is a consonant where air flows out the nasal passage, >and the glottis is unable to propel air out the nasal passage, by >definition one cannot have an ejective nasal.
I don't see why the glottis cannot propel air out of the nasal passage=20 when it can propel air out into the vocal cavity. All you have to do=20 is lower the velum to allow air to escape into the nasal passage.=20 Imagine a nasally release ejective stop (e.g. [p_m' t_n' k_N']. In=20 such sounds, the (constricted) glottis forces air into the oral cavity=20 while there is an oral closure. But instead of releasing the oral=20 closure as you would in normal ejectives, you lower the velum allowing=20 the compressed air from behind the oral closure (and above the glottis)=20 to escape into the the nasal passage. I must add, however, that I don't think its possible for ejectives=20 without an oral constriction (obstruent) element to exist as a speech=20 sound. Sonorants with a glottal airstream mechanism would not produce=20 any auditorily perceptive sounds to become useful as a speech sound.
>However, one could have a nasal quickly followed by a glottal stop, >and this might form part of a pattern where it played a role analogous >to glottalics, so for all intents and purposes there might be a nasal >in a row of ejectives.
This brings us back to the Salishan languages. Indeed, the creaky=20 voiced nasals of some Salish languages can be narrowly transcribed as=20 [m<creaky>? n<creaky>?]. The feature cuts across the obstruent-sonorant=20 paradigm - the feature being [+/-constricted glottis]. -kristian- 8)