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Re: Paucity of Phonemes (was Re: Thagojian phonology...

From:Kristian Jensen <kljensen@...>
Date:Saturday, February 26, 2000, 20:31
Nik Taylor wrote:

>Kristian Jensen wrote: >> where; /t[/ and /d[/ are laminal denti-alveolar, /L/ is a lateral >> fricative, /3/ is a consonantal version of /@/ (schwa - or >> more specifically a raised and centralized close-mid back >> vowel). > >What? How can /@/ be pronounced as a consonant?
Easy! Consider English /r/ and then the American English retroflexed vowel in words like 'bird' and 'heard'. English /r/ could be seen as a consonantal version of the retroflexed vowel. A better parallel would be Danish /r/. In syllable final position, its a consonantal version of a low back unrounded vowel [V] - hence, a pharyngeal sound. This is the same principle behind Boreanesian /3/. I did say that /@/ is more specifically a raised and centralized close-mid back vowel - hence, consonantal [@] is approximately a velar sound. Actually, /3/ is a rather problematic phoneme in Boreanesian. I derived it from two sounds that are phonetically quite different; [?] and [@<consonantal>]. [?] occurs in syllable-initial position and in syllable- final position. In syllable-final position, the sound derives from one of the two phonemic prosodemes and can therefore not be counted as segmental. It is thereby becomes complementary in distrubution with [@<consonantal>], which only occurs in syllable final position. Has anyone else dealt with problematic phonemes in their language? -kristian- 8)