Re: word derivation in sabyuka (some principles)

julien eychenne wrote:
> I'm trying, I can do at best one flap and a half ! If I do two
> vibrations, I get something close to /pEr@rO/. And it doesn't sound that
> good.
Actually, with trills, it's your lungs that do the work.  It helps to
practice first with a voiceless trill, even tho those are very rare,
once you've gotten the voiceless down, voiced should be easy.  You just
put your tongue in position for /d[/ (that is, dental d, the French or
Spanish d), but let it connect loosely with the roof of the mouth.
Then, breathe out hard, trying (but not too hard) to keep your tongue
connected to the roof.  If you get the right balance, not too loose (an
s-type sound), not too tight (/d[/), you'll end up with a voiceless
trill, when your tongue essentially flaps in the breeze.  Once you've
learned to do that, add voicing, and you've got {rr}

> Just notice that the [g] is often lacking in phonological systems
> because it is the hardest plosive to pronounce]
Some descendants of Uatakassi turned /g/ into /N/.  All of them made
/gg/ into [Ng] at least, [NN] in the /g/ -> /N/ langs.  Actually, most
of the descendants turned voiced geminate stops into nasal-stop
sequences.

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