Re: Phonemic vowel and consonant length.
| From: | Roger Mills <romilly@...> |
|---|
| Date: | Sunday, February 2, 2003, 16:04 |
|---|
Steven Williams wrote:
>3. Quite a few languages hold phonemic consonant length contrasts--Italian,
Japanese, Finnish and so on. Is it at all common, or even possible, to have a
three-level distinction? In stops?
Interesting idea. Here's a possibility:
/t/ realized as [d]
/t:/ realized as [t]
/t::/ realized as [t:] or maybe [?t] or some other "emphatic" pronunciation.
Would probably work best in a system that lacked contrastive voiced stops. But
how would voiced stops work, if they were also present?
/d/ realized as [D]?
/d:/ realized as [d] (overlap with /t/, not good)?
/d::/ realized a [d:] or [?d] or other emphatic.
Replies