Re: Tonal Languages taken to extremes

On Sun, 30 Sep 2001 07:30:45 -0400, Andreas Johansson <and_yo@...>
wrote:

>Nik Taylor wrote:
>>There are languages which require onsets.  In fact, I think Arabic is an
>>example.  I know that Arabic words can't *begin* with a vowel, things
>>like al- are actually pronounced with an initial glottal stop.
>
>Is this just a phonetic requirement, or does words have to begin in a
>phonemic consonants? (In other words, is that glottal stop phonemic, or is
>it just there to prevent a phonetically initial vowel?)
In Arabic it's both. It can be a normal root consonant, and besides it is
automatically added to initial vowels. The article _al-_ is underlying /al/
(with vowel onset) but it cannot appear in this form on the surface. In the
beginning of a setence it's pronounced /?al/. But when the glottal stop
is part of the root, it mostly behaves like any other consonant: [?ata:]
(perfect) -> [ta?ta:] (conjunctive) like [rada:] -> [tarda:].

In German it works more like a delimiter, e. g. Abart [?ap?art].


Basilius