Re: THEORY: Articulatory phonetics (was Re: THEORY: unergative)

Hallo!

On Sun, 22 Feb 2004 19:45:18 -0600,
Herman Miller <hmiller@...> wrote:

> Trebor Jung wrote:
> > [...]
> > it's impossible to see what phoneme goes with what point of articulation!
>
> Understandable. The problem is that X-SAMPA is such a haphazardly
> designed system that it's very difficult to remember without a chart.
It is, and many symbols are chosen poorly.  It seems that human
readability wasn't a design goal.  No wonder so many proposals
to modify the systems were made, and the CONLANG community
has developed their own (poorly standardized) version of it.

>       I
> still keep a printout of the chart next to my computer when reading or
> writing posts that use X-SAMPA. The diacritics are especially bad. And
> there really isn't any easier way to describe the sounds than to use the
> technical terms.
My dissatisfaction with X-SAMPA, Kirschenbaum etc. led me to the
development of yet another system, CPA ,a few years ago.
CPA was explicitly designed to be human-readable and intuitive,
yet as systematic as I could achieve.  It certainly isn't perfect,
though.

Here's my Trebor-friendly CPA chart:

Plosives:
Bilabial [p], [b]
Alveolar [t], [d]
Retroflex [t.], [d.]
Palatal [c], [J]
Velar [k], [g]
Uvular [q], [Q]
Glottal [?]

Nasals:
Bilabial [m]
Labiodental [M]
Alveolar [n]
Retroflex [n.]
Palatal ["n]
Velar [N]
Uvular ["N]

Trills:
Bilabial ["B]
Alveolar ["r]
Uvular ["R]

Alveolar tap: [r]
Retroflex flap: [r.]

Fricatives:
Bilabial [P], [B]
Labiodental [f], [v]
Dental [T], [D]
Alveolar [s], [z]
Postalveolar [S], [Z]
Retroflex [s.], [z.]
Palatal [C], ["j]
Velar [x], [G]
Uvular [X], [R]
Pharyngeal [H], [9]
Glottal [h], ["h]

Lateral fricatives (alveolar): ["l], ["Z]

Approximants:
Labiodental ["v]
Alveolar [*r]
Retroflex [*r.]
Palatal [j]
Labial-palatal ["y]
Velar ["w]
Labial-velar [w]

Lateral approximants:
Alveolar [l]
Retroflex [l.]
Palatal [L]
Velar ["L]

Diacritics:

_h  voiceless         _:  breathy voiced     _d  dental
_v  voiced            _~  creaky voiced      _a  apical
^h  aspirated         _m  linguolabial       _l  laminal
_)  more rounded      ^w  labialized         ~   nasalized
_(  less rounded      ^j  palatalized        ^n  nasal release
_+  advanced          ^G  velarized          ^l  lateral release
_-  retracted         ^9  pharyngealized     ^7  no audible release
^:  centralized       ^~  velarized or pharyngealized
^x  mid-centralized   _^  raised
_|  syllabic          _V  lowered
_`  non-syllabic      _<  advanced tongue root
^r  rhoticity         _>  retracted tongue root


And here's the vowels: first unrounded, then rounded.

Close front: [i], [y]
Close central: [*i], [*u]
Close back: ["i], [u]
Between close and close-mid: front [I], [Y],
central [*I] [*U] and back ["I], [U]
Close-mid front: [e], ["o]
Close-mid central: [*e], [*o]
Close-mid back: ["e], [o]
Mid central unrounded (schwa): [@]
Open-mid front: [E], ["O]
Open-mid central: [*E], [*O]
Open-mid back: ["E], [O]
Between open-mid and open: front unrounded [&], central unrounded [*a].
Open front: [a], ["6].
Open back: [A], [6].

Greetings,

Jörg.