Re: Tallefkeul: tones and whatnot

Quoting JS Bangs <jaspax@...>:

> Thomas R. Wier sikyal:
>
> > > --- In conlang@y..., Andreas Johansson <and_yo@H...> wrote:
> > >
> > > > One day or another, I'm going to understand how [mbr] is easier to
> > > > pronounce than [mr].
> >
> > Some recent work I've seen on cross-syllabic clusters in Altaic
> > languages seems to indicate that there is a marked tendency for
> > there to be a large gap on the sonority scale between the coda
> > and the following onset.  [m] and [r] are close to one another
> > on the sonority scale, and therefore inserting a [b], very low in
> > sonority, would increase the sonority contour. (I think this all
> > results from Obligatory Contour Principle.)
>
> Eh? I thought that the Obligatory Contour Principle was the principle that
> forbade identical adjacent tones at the tone tier in underlying
> representations. What you're talking about is something else that I can't
> remember either right now--Optimal Sonority Curve, or something like that.
> Perhaps I'm misremembering, though.
No, that may have been what it started out as, but it's much
more widely used today.  Here's what Iggy Roca's textbook on
phonology defines it as:  "The tendency to disallow adjacent
similar elements from all tiers but the skeleton, within a
common domain or constituent."  It is widely used to explain
all sorts of dissimilatory phenomena.

 =========================================================================
Thomas Wier
Dept. of Linguistics  "Nihil magis praestandum est quam ne pecorum ritu
University of Chicago sequamur antecedentium gregem, pergentes non qua
1010 E. 59th Street   eundum est, sed qua itur." -- Seneca
Chicago, IL 60637

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