Re: OT: Non-Human Phonology

On Tue, 16 May 2006 08:49:05 +0100, Peter Bleackley
<Peter.Bleackley@...> wrote:

>Relative pitch will be a more suitable basis for a language than absolute
>pitch, since it is easier to identify, and can cope better with changes in
>the speaker's voice over the course of a lifetime. Perhaps the basic
>phonemes of such a language are pairs of tones separated by a given
>interval, eg rising fifth, descending minor third etc. A sequence of N
>notes could thus contain N-1 phonemes, one for each successive pair of
>notes. There might be phonotactic constraints on how many rising or
>falling intervals can occur consecutively, to prevent the utterance going
>out of a typical speaker's range. And if their aesthetic sense is
>anything like a human's, the tritone is likely to be forbidden.
>From what I've read, birds have excellent absolute pitch and rather poor
relative pitch, whereas it's vice-versa for humans and most other
mammals.  So, despite the advantages you bring up in favor of relative
pitch, I think absolute pitch might be the more realistic way to go here.
Otherwise, though, your ideas on musical phonemes sound excellent!  I
especially like the suggestion on phonotactic constraints.  What's a
tritone, though?

- Rob

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