Re: help! phonology...& addendum

> On Mon, Oct 23, 2000 at 02:21:24PM -0400, Yoon Ha Lee wrote:
> > On Mon, 23 Oct 2000, Yoon Ha Lee wrote:
> [snip]
> > And I just noticed that /c/ and /C/ also have voiced versions which
> > aren't represented, and the asymmetry of that worries me too.
> [snip]
>
> A language doesn't need to have voiced consonants IIRC... the only
> compulsory rule I know of is that if there is an affricate/fricative sound
> of a particular class (eg. dentals, velars, etc.), then there must be a
> corresponding simple stop. So if you have /x/, either /g/ or /k/ would
> need to be present. But this does not go the other way -- just because you
> have /k/ doesn't mean you must have /x/. And I *suspect* that the presence
> of /k/ does not require the presence of /g/, but I may be wrong...
I've heard this rule, too, but I just thought of an obvious exception in
English.  English has six dental/alveolar fricatives /T D s z S Z/ but
only four sounds that could reasonably be called stops /t d tZ dZ/.  No
matter how you slice it *some* set of fricative is gonna be orphaned,
unless you make the silly assertion that /T D/ are the "same class" as /s
z/.

Another "universal" bites the dust . . . (but it's still not a bad rule of
thumb)


Jesse S. Bangs jaspax@u.washington.edu
"It is of the new things that men tire--of fashions and proposals and
improvements and change.  It is the old things that startle and
intoxicate.  It is the old things that are young."
-G.K. Chesterton _The Napoleon of Notting Hill_