Re: Voicing and Plurality

In a message dated 06/13/02 2:13:05 PM, jaspax@U.WASHINGTON.EDU writes:

<< How is s/z any more confusable than k/g or t/d? >>

    Agreed.  Acoustically, I think k/g and t/d are more difficult to
distinguish than s/z--especially k/g.  Even in languages that have both /k/
and /g/ as phonemes, /g/ appears less frequently than /k/.  The voicing in
strident fricatives, I think, is easiest to tell.  If you had some other sort
of articulatory feature--aspiration on voiceless stops, creaky voice on
voiced stops, longer vowels preceeding voiced stops--that would help, and
make it seem more natural, and seem like such a system could evolve and be
regular, po moyemu.

-David

"fawiT, Gug&g, tSagZil-a-Gariz, waj min DidZejsat wazid..."
"Soft, driven, slow and mad, like some new language..."
                    -Jim Morrison