Re: Practicing pronounciation; consonant clusters

Roger Mills wrote:
>Arthaey Angosii wrote:
> > > > That reminds me, I still need to go pronounce what I trascribe as
> > > > [ml~)] (Asha'ille |ml|) to my linguistics professor, to she if she
> > > > has a better IPA transcription suggestion...(snip)
> > The best way I can think to describe it more is thus: Start by saying
> > a dark /l/. Now, while doing your dark-l business, bring your lips
> > together for the /m/. When you separate your lips while continuing the
> > /l/, you'll have the sound I mean. (Instructions tested on
> > unsuspecting non-conlanger boyfriend. *grin*)
> >
>I was trying it slightly differently: close the lips as for [m],
>simultaneously put the tongue in position for dark [l]. Then start voicing.
>This produces an audibly different sound than plain [m], of course because
>the resonating chamber in the mouth has a different shape. Putting it into
>the flow of speech, e.g. "a[ml~]a" seems to produce either a nasalized l+m
>or m(b)l release but with a little work I managed to release both
>articulators at the same time. Is this what you had in mind?
Dark l? So [5] and not [l]?

>Not so strangely, I suppose, if you close the lips for [m] but put the
>tongue in position for [n] or [N], you simply get [n]/[N]; the closed lips
>don't seem to matter.
Still, /mN)/ does exist in some languages; the timing of the closure starts
and releases is what primarily distinguishes the quality of the sound from
its components.
I've even heard of an African language where labial-velars contrast with all
three of plain labials, plain velars and rounded velars.

John Vertical

Replies