Re: Velarization, uvularization, pharyngealization

Eric Christopherson skrev:
 > I've noticed that descriptions of the "emphatic"
 > consonants in Arabic usually say that they are
 > pharyngealized, but sometimes they are described as
 > velarized instead. Also, the tilde diacritic through a
 > letter (not above it) in IPA is described as "velarized or
 > pharyngealized". For this reason I am led to ask: do
 > languages which have velarization or pharyngealization
 > generally not distinguish between the two? Are speakers
 > free in any given utterance to select velarization or
 > pharyngealization or something in between?

I think we may assume that there is such variation in
Arabic, and that this is the reason for the ambiguous tilde
overlay symbol in the first place. Olden IPA was even more
phonologically oriented than present IPA, and rather much
oriented towards the 'major' European languages and the
'major' languages of their colonial dependencies.

IPA doesn't even have an official symbol for
uvularization, although Unicode has the obvious small
raised turned R at \u02B6.

BTW, doesn't /q/ rather much function as the emphatic
counterpart of /k/ in Semitic languages. (Steg, are
you here?)
--

/BP 8^)
--
   B.Philip Jonsson mailto:melrochX@melroch.se (delete X)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Truth, Sir, is a cow which will give [skeptics] no more milk,
and so they are gone to milk the bull."
                                     -- Sam. Johnson (no rel. ;)

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