Re: Making your language sound nice

On Sun, 15 Jun 2008 10:48:46 -0700, Michael Martin wrote:
>"Liquids" is a term I'm not too familiar with. Which consonants are liquids?
>What other types of consonants are there?
Stops: Consonants that involve temporarily closing the vocal tract. Includes
[p b t d k g]. These typical ones are also called plosives for their
caracteristic release.
Fricatives: Consonants with a near-closure of the vocal tract, which causes
friction-like sound when the airflo passes thru. Includes [f v s z x].
Sibilants: Fricatives pronounced with the tongue in a grooved shape, to
produce strong, high-pitched noice. Includes [s z S Z] but not eg. [f h].
Affricates: Stops that are released in a fricative-like (usually, more
exactly, sibilant-like) fashion; transcribed as such, too. Includes [pf ts
dz tS dZ].

Obstruents: Stops, affricates and fricatives.
Sonorants: The opposite of obstruents. As such, this technically also
includes vowels.
Continuants: Everything except stops. Vowels count here, too.

Nasals: Technically stops, but pronounced with the nasal passage open so
there's no obstruction of airflo. Includes [m n].

Taps: Very short stops without explosion. Usually rhotics. Rarely contrasted
with flaps.
Flaps: As it says, quickly brushing an articulator against another. Usually
rhotics. Rarely contrasted with taps. The X-SAMPA [4] may mean either a tap
or a flap (an alveolar one).
Trills: Pronounced by vibrating one articulator; usually with an effect of a
flurry of taps or flaps. Usually rhotic. Includes [r].
Rhotics: An ill-defined class of "r-like" sounds that includes most taps,
flaps and trills, some guttural fricatives, and certain approximants.
Approximants: Consonants that do not obstruct the passage of air thru the
vocal tract.
Laterals: Consonants articulated by raising the middle of the tongue to the
palate, but not the edges, so that air must pass laterally. [l] is a lateral
approximant; lateral fricatives and affricates are also possible.
Semivowels: Approximants that are pronounced basically the same as some
vowel or another. Includes [j w] (the consonantal forms of [i u]). Also
called glides.
Liquids: Sonorants that aren't nasals or semivowels, ie. lateral
approximants and most rhotics.

I'm actually not sure if non-semivowel, non-lateral, non-rhotic
approximants, like let's say a dental approximant, would count as liquids…

That's it for manners of articulation. I'm not going to go into places of
articulation or further details like voicing here…

John Vertical