Re: Phonemic vowel and consonant length.

On 2003.02.03 03:03 Roger Mills wrote:
> 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)?
Bah! Of course that's good! And remember: Widse is still able to be
redesigned at a moments notice!

>   /d::/ realized a [d:] or [?d] or other emphatic.
(Of course, if you were boring and wanted to have some sort of
regularity attached, it could be:
        /t/ = [T]
        /t:/ = [t]
        /t:: / = [?t] etc.
or
        /t/ = [t]
        /t:/ = [t_h]
        /t::/ = [?t] etc.
or
        /t/ = [t]
        /t:/ = [t:]
        /t::/ = [t_s:] etc.)

Tristan.

Tristan.