Not So (was: Strange sounds)

FFlores wrote:
-----Original Message-----
From: FFlores <fflores@...>
To: CONLANG@LISTSERV.BROWN.EDU <CONLANG@...>
Date: Monday, February 28, 2000 1:42 AM
Subject: Strange sounds


>Trying new sounds, I discovered I had found a
>distinctive new point of articulation (well,
>new for me). I'm articulating a fricative
>like this: my tongue tip is pointing down,
>touching the inner face of my lower teeth
>(and my gums too); the middle part (blade?)
>is arched up, and touching the palatal
>ridge. My upper teeth are pressed against
>my tongue, my lips a bit apart, and I can
>either blow between my teeth and tongue
>(which is difficult) or laterally, making
>my cheeks inflate. I can also make a stop
>like this, maybe with some affrication
>(not lateral).
>
>All in all, the fricative is quite dental,
>like a malformed /T/, but the stop is quite
>distinctive. Is this a sound in any natlang?
>How would you call it?
Its called a (lamino-) denti-alveolar sound. I put 'lamino-'
in parenthesis because denti-alveolar sounds are always laminal.
They are common among the Australian aboriginal languages and
are often constrastive with other coronal stops, nasals, and
sometimes liquids including apico-alveolar, lamino-alveopalatal,
and apico-alveopalatal (retroflex). Incidentally, denti-alveolar
stops also exist in Boreanesian and is constrastive with another
coronal; apico-alveolar. They sound somewhat like a /t/ sound with
a lisp - but I don't think its that strange a sound ;-)

-kristian- 8)