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Re: Velarization (was: English: Thou)

From:Danny Wier <dawier@...>
Date:Tuesday, June 27, 2000, 3:31
>From: Oskar Gudlaugsson <hr_oskar@...>
>Quick question: How does velarization work? What does it sound like? It's >one of a few phonetic traits that I don't understand.
Velarization (or pharyngealization) is a secondary feature of consonants and vowels. IPA marks consonants with a tilde through the letter, while vowels are followed with a superscript turned script a. Velarized consonants are a feature of Arabic and Irish Gaelic; in the former they are called "emphatic" and the latter "broad". In Irish, such consonants, when preceding or following a, o, u, ae and ao are "broad", while those next to e and i are "slender". Slender consonants are exactly like the "soft" consonants of Russian, that is, palatized. The Arabic "emphatics" are s.aad, d.aad, t.aa, dh.aa (the dentals), h.aa and `ayn (the pharyngeals). (qaaf, khaa and ghayn are considered by some to be "emphatic"; these are the uvulars.) The same way you advance your tongue forward as though you were uttering the vowel [i] for "slender" consonants, you move your tongue backward as you were saying [u] (without the rounded lips). Or the root of the tongue draws back toward the pharynx, as you were pronouncing Arabic "emphatic" consonants. This gives the consonant a "darker" sound -- the difference between "crunchy" and "crispy", if you compare them to wafers, crackers and potato/tortilla chips. Pharyngealized vowels are simply vowels with a retracted tongue root/back. Maltese has pharyngealized vowels (I think just /a/), as do (?) North Caucasian languages. In an earlier post, someone (gawd why do I forget) posted the list of Ubykh, a NW Cauc. language, which has a whole set of velarized/pharyngealized consonants. Even though precisely the two secondary features are different in actual pronunciation, they are marked with the same IPA diacritic and are never phonemic individually. You might wanna practice these to get a better feel for them. Just pronounce all your consonants while you thicken the back of your tongue. Compare them with palatized consonants, where the tongue (the surface behind the tip) is drawn upward and forward. Daniel A. Wier ¶¦¬þ Lufkin, Texas USA http://communities.msn.com/DannysDoubleWideontheWeb ________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com