Re: markjjones@HOTMAIL.COM

Mark Jones wrote:
<<
> So interdentals may be "inherently" pharyngealised, and you
> don;t need to try and make an additional velar constriction (which
> would
> be hard).
 >>

This seems totally counterintuitive to me, because...

Steven wrote:
<<
What about certain dialects of Arabic, with
pharyngealized [D]? Is there some other contrast
involved besides simple pharyngealization? IIRC, it
used to be a voiced lateral fricative [K\].
 >>

I've *never* heard of that latter fact (seems totally
bizarre to me), but at least the standard dialect of
Arabic *does* have a pharyngealized [D] as well
as a non-pharyngealized [D].  The reason why what
Mark wrote sounds so counterintuitive to me is
because the pharyngealized /D/ is often realized
as a pharyngealized [z], because, quite frankly, it's
hard to keep a pharyngeal constriction and extend
your tongue to the interdental region.  So to me it
would seem bizarre to say that interdental consonants
are naturally fricativized--kind of like saying that
nasals are naturally voiceless.

However, as a counterargument to this, it could be
that the pharyngealized /D/ has moved backwards
for phonological reasons.  Specifically, if there's a
phonologically pharyngealized /D/, and a phonologically
non-pharyngealized /D/ which itself is naturally
pharyngealized, confusion could result.

-David

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