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

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)