Re: Vowels?

En réponse à Chris Palmer <cecibean@...>:

> allophones
> of /r/ (spelled {r}) are vowels. However, I said [R]--a *phonetic*
> transcription--is a vowel, because it is.
>
No it's not. In "writer", the first and last sounds are acoustically identical,
with the difference that one IS USED as a consonant and the second one as a
vowel. Yes, there may be a little difference in length, but not of place of
articulation or position of the tongue.

>
> The line I'm drawing is one of phonetic (articulatory), not phonemic.
> Phonetically, the line is relatively clear, I repeat.
>
It's not. Or else syllabic consonants just couldn't exist. The simple fact that
it's possible to use what you normally call consonants as syllable peaks is
just a proof that articulatorily speaking, all sounds pertain to a continuum
which you CANNOT cut in well defined sections (at least as long as you talk
about pulmonic sounds, the ones that are pronounced with a normal stream of
voice), simply because those definitions don't exist. If all texts I've read
about phonetics all state that you can't strictly separate vowels from
consonants, that this separation is just ad hoc for each language, and that
everything belongs to a continuum, there must be a reason for it. All
phoneticians are not stupid.

Just a thing about "clear lines": nothing is ever obvious. What you take for
granted may not be so for somebody else. Instead of dismissing the other's
opinion, think a little about it and listen to the arguments given. Things you
think are obvious may well not be. We're taught at school that consonants and
vowels are very different and that a clear line can be cut in between, and
that's why we consider that obvious. Other people may have other opinions on
the matter, and good arguments to prove this view wrong. Don't dismiss them
because "it's obvious". That's the worst argument you can give.

So I'll repeat once again: the classification between consonants and vowels is
just a practical one which accounts for most frequent use as syllabic peak or
not (more open sounds have a bigger probability to be used as syllabic peaks
than less open ones. Yet it's just a probability, not a strict rule. Syllabic
consonants are quite frequent in the world - one third of languages in the
world use them, and among them, 5% use stops. Not much, but still more than
zero, and in complete contradiction with the existance of a strict limit
between consonants and vowels). Phonetically speaking, that's all it is.
Acoustically we have a continuum, and differences in degree, rather than strict
limits.

The human tendency has the bad tendency to take labels as strict definitions.
The first thing if you want to have an unbiased approach to things is to get
rid of this habit.

Christophe.

http://rainbow.conlang.free.fr

Take your life as a movie: do not let anybody else play the leading role.

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