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Re: Some natlang questions?

From:Danny Wier <dawier@...>
Date:Saturday, July 14, 2001, 2:22
From: "Andreas Johansson" <and_yo@...>

[ego]
| >The majority of descriptions I've seen give the c-curl for <x>, the t +
| >c-curl
| >for <j>, and the t + c-curl + superscript h for <q>.  (Indicentally,
| >c-curl,
| >z-curl, t + c-curl and d + z-curl are found in Polish.)
|
| What are these "curls"? Is c-curl = c-cedilla?

The IPA c-curl is a palatized version of IPA s.  IPA z-curl is a palatized z.
They can also be found as components of affricates, and the tc/dz curled
ligatures can be found in the Unicode standard.  The technical term is
alveolopalatal (rather than palatoalveolar, the sounds of English "ch", "j",
"sh").  The palatal element is very prominent, so the sound of c-curl approaches
that of c-cedilla (the pure palatal voiceless fricative).

Palatoalveolars are found in:
Mandarin Chinese (Pinyin q, j, x)
Polish (ci/c', si/s', dz', z'/zi)
Serbo-Croatian (c', dj/d-)
Hungarian (gy, ty)
In languages like Sanskrit and its descendants which had a shift from palatal to
palatoalveolar (c, ch, j, jh, s'), palatoalveolar was probably an intermediate
stage.

~DaW~


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Danny Wier <dawier@...>