Re: Kjaginic: 8 points of articulation

Alex Fink wrote:
> On Sat, 27 Sep 2008 00:20:39 -0400, Herman Miller <hmiller@...> wrote:
>
>> I still need to figure out how the possible points of articulation can
>> be assigned to these shapes. There could be some flexibility depending
>> on language, but one possibility would be something like this:
>>
>> column 1: bilabial, labiodental
>> column 2: dental
>> column 3: alveolar
>> column 4: post-alveolar, retroflex
>> column 5: palatal
>> column 6: velar
>> column 7: uvular, pharyngeal
>> column 8: epiglottal, glottal
>
> Hm.  Of those POAs, you've split up one of the two pairs (bilabial and
> labiodental being the other) I think of as most similar, namely pharyngeal
> vs. epiglottal.  AIUI epiglottals are most of the things we used to think
> were pharygeals before epiglottals were widely known of; in any case,
> they're similar.
>
> Dental and alveolar are pretty similar too.  Ah well, I suppose you have a /T/.
>
> Alex
I guess all three of pharyngeal, epiglottal, and glottal could share
column 8, since I'm not likely to contrast these. Post-alveolar and
retroflex are sharing column 4 since these are allophones in Tirelat.
The main concern is that some Tirelat dialects have 5 contrasting POA
for fricatives: labiodental, dental, alveolar, post-alveolar (or
retroflex), and velar (or palatal). Since Kjaginic doesn't have forms
for affricates, I'm using the symbols for stops; some dialects have
bilabial stops, dental stops, alveolar affricates, retroflex affricates,
and velar stops. On the other hand, the languages I'm concerned with
rarely have palatal/velar contrasts. So something like this might be an
alternative assignment:

column 1: bilabial
column 2: labiodental
column 3: dental
column 4: alveolar
column 5: post-alveolar, retroflex
column 6: palatal, velar
column 7: uvular
column 8: pharyngeal, epiglottal, glottal

The problem with this is that bilabial vs. labiodental contrasts are
unlikely to be needed. Besides, there is a Tirelat dialect that
contrasts labial-palatal, palatal, and labial-velar approximants /H j
w/, which could be approximated with the bilabial, palatal and velar
symbols.

Combining the dentals and alveolars in column 2 would leave a column for
pharyngeal + epiglottal separate from the others.

column 1: bilabial, labiodental
column 2: dental, alveolar
column 3: post-alveolar, retroflex
column 4: palatal
column 5: velar
column 6: uvular
column 7: pharyngeal, epiglottal
column 8: glottal

But it's more likely that I'll need a dental/alveolar contrast than a
three-way palatal/velar/uvular set. And there's also linguolabial to
consider. So maybe something like this, where velar can go in column 5
or 6 depending on whether a palatal/velar or velar/uvular contrast is
needed, and dental sounds can go into either column 2 or 3.

column 1: bilabial, labiodental
column 2: linguolabial, dental
column 3: dental, alveolar
column 4: post-alveolar, retroflex
column 5: palatal, velar
column 6: velar, uvular
column 7: pharyngeal, epiglottal
column 8: glottal