Re: Question about pharyngealized consonants?

On Sat, 4 Nov 2000 22:43:14 -0600, Danny Wier <dawier@...> wrote:

<...>
>Then I came up with an idea. The "geminates" will be pharyngealized.
>Since stops and affricates are voiced/voiceless/ejective, I could map the
>laryngeal components to the six laryngeals (three pharyngeals, three
>glottals) and have a sextuple system -- I'll give examples for velars:
>
>"lenis":  k'  k   g
>"fortis": k~' k~  g~
>
>For fricatives, there are four, and I'll give alveolar sibilants here:
>
>"lenis":  s   z
>"fortis": s~  z~
>
>Here are the six laryngeals of Q:
>
>glottal:    h\  h   ?  (h\ = IPA h curved top, the voiced [h])
>pharyngeal: ?-  h-  ?\ (?\ = reversed ?, the voiced [h-])
>("emphatic")
>
>One can also use the terms "tense" and "lax"; a lot easier to say than
>"geminate" and "ungeminate".
<...>
>Any natlang examples of this?
Starostin in his Preface to A Comparative Dictionary of North
Caucasian Languages ( http://starling.rinet.ru/texts/texts.htm )
mentions some similar systems (Lak? Lezghian? I forget :( ).
Plus reconstructed evolution for 6,000 years or so.

(Use his fonts to have less trouble with the transcription)


Basilius