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

Trebor Jung wrote:
> Merhaba!
>
> BPJ wrote:
>
> "IIRC Trebor is blind, so he can't see the chart image, which of course
> makes things more difficult to him."
Oops. That should remind me to check who the question is from before
replying.

> Yes. Another problem: A chart like this,
>
> Bilabial     Labiodental     Dental     Alveolar    Retroflex     Palatal
> Velar    Uvular     Glottal     Pharingial
> Plosives ...
> Fricatives ...
>
> 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. 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.

Here's the consonant chart (where I list two symbols the first is
voiceless and the second is voiced).

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

Nasals:
Bilabial [m]
Labiodental [F]
Alveolar [n]
Retroflex [n`]
Palatal [J]
Velar [N]
Uvular [N\]

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

Alveolar tap: [4]
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 [X\], [?\]
Glottal [h], [h\]

Lateral fricatives (alveolar): [K], [K\]

Approximants:
Labiodental [P] (or [v\])
Alveolar [r\]
Retroflex [r\`]
Palatal [j]
Velar [M\]

Lateral approximants:
Alveolar [l]
Retroflex [l`]
Palatal [L]
Velar [L\]

An easy way to remember the retroflex symbols is that they all use the
reverse apostrophe. That's pretty much the only systematic feature of
the system; the rest of it is haphazard and just needs to be memorized.

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

Close front: [i], [y]
Close central: [1], [}] (but in CXS we write [i\], [u\])
Close back: [M], [u]
Between close and close-mid: front [I], [Y] and back rounded [U]
X-SAMPA also has central vowels between close and close-mid without any
IPA equivalents: [I\] and [U\].
Close-mid front: [e], [2]
Close-mid central: [@\], [8]
Close-mid back: [7], [o]
Mid central unrounded (schwa): [@]
Open-mid front: [E], [9]
Open-mid central: [3], [3\]
Open-mid back: [V], [O]
Between open-mid and open: front unrounded [{], central unrounded [6].
But we almost universally use [&] for the "a" sound in English "bat" here.
Open front: [a], [&]. Since we use [&] for the "short a" sound, we've
changed the rarely used open front rounded vowel symbol to [&\].
Open back: [A], [Q].