Re: rhotics (was: Hellenish oddities)

BP Jonsson wrote:
>I wonder how widespread lgs with more than one "r" phoneme are?  Spanish is
>famous for its r/rr, Portuguese and Occitan have r/R, but beyond
>that?  What about people's conlangs?  Wanic has a slew of laterals but only
>one rhotic.
According to my texts, only ca. 20% of the world's langs have more
than one /r/ phoneme. Most (ca. 75%) of the the world's langs have
only one /r/ phoneme. Most of these are manifested as taps/trills.

Dravidian and especially Australian langs are famous for having
multiple <r>s. Toda, a Dravidian lang, in fact has rhotics in
three places of articulation that are all trilled and at the same
time contrast between plain and palatized versions in syllable final
position -- six rhotics in all, e.g.: front alveolar trill,
palatalized front alveolar trill, alveolar trill, palatalized
alveolar trill, retroflexed trill, palatalized retroflexed trill.
I'm not sure, but I think Toda is the world record holder.

As far as my conlangs goes, both Boreanesian and Akte lack rhotics
(at least in the underlying phonemic level). Proto-Boreanesian had
an alveolar approximant. But all apical continuants underwent a
process of lateralization so that Boreanesian today has no rhotics.
Actually, Boreanesian has a lateral tap -- I'm not sure whether
that's a rhotic or a lateral (or both). Akte has no underlying
laterals or rhotics at all, but they surface as allophones of /t/ in
intervocalic position.

-kristian- 8)