Re: help! phonology...& addendum

On Mon, 23 Oct 2000 19:49:41 -0500, Danny Wier <dawier@...> wrote:

>What I am about to say may raise some controversy (which I love to do ;)
>-- I do believe that English has alveolar sibilant affricates but doesn't
>want to admit it:
>
>/adz/ "adze"
>/ad/ "add"
>/az/ "as"
>
>/sits/ "sits"
>/sit/ "sit"
>/sis/ "sis" (< "sister")
>
>Which results in six fricatives for six stops/affricates. But there still
>could be exceptions to what is obviously a "universal"; can't think of
>any right now but always leave room for an exception...
But English doesn't have initial /ts/ or /dz/ (except in ultra-precise
pronunciations of "tsunami" and "tsetse fly", and _maybe_ in an attempt to
pronounce the pterosaur name "Dsungaripterus"). Maybe if "adze" sounded
somehow different from "ads" or "adds" (/&d/ + /z/).....

I've always had the impression that fricatives tend to be more common than
stops. English is an obvious example, but also look at Arabic. I suppose
you could consider uvular and pharyngeal as corresponding in some way, but
Arabic also has /T s S/ (like English), while there's only one stop /t/ in
the same area (not counting the emphatic versions, which include both stops
and fricatives).

Also, /S/ is a fairly common sound, but IPA doesn't even have a symbol for
the corresponding stop. Every language I can think of that has /S/ has a
contrasting /s/.

I suppose non-human languages don't count as evidence one way or other for
universals ... but my newest language-in-progress, Távi, has four
fricatives (all voiced) and only two stops. Only one of the fricatives,
/z/, corresponds with one of the stops (/t/ and /k/); the others are /v/,
/r/ (actually /z`/, and /j/ (actually /j\/).

--
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