Re: Phonology and Questions

Nik wrote:
>> yl-ruil wrote:
>> stop     p, p'            t, t'             k, k'          q, q'
>
> Rather unusual (perhaps unprecedented) to have ejectives with no voicing
> distinctions.
>
Unusual--possibly, unprecedented--certainly not.

Navajo has voiceless unaspirated, voiceless aspirated, and ejective at all
it's stop and affricate positions (well, no ejective at the labial).  What
makes Navajo deceiving is the orthography.  The above series for the coronal
stops is d,t, and t', which might lead one to think that there are voiced
stops, when in reality there are not.

Korean, too, has the voiceless unaspirated, voiceless aspirated, and
voiceless glottalized (which I think is either very close to an ejective or
the same as an ejective), so there are languages out there that do have
ejectives without voicing distinctions.  As a matter of fact, it may be a
"useful" thing to have without voicing distinctions.

-Doug