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Re: Boreanesian /3/ (was Re: Paucity of Phonemes...

From:Thomas R. Wier <artabanos@...>
Date:Monday, February 28, 2000, 18:38
Kristian Jensen wrote:

> Thomas Wier wrote: > > >Kristian Jensen wrote: > > > >> Nik Taylor wrote: > >> > >> >Kristian Jensen wrote: > >> >> where; /t[/ and /d[/ are laminal denti-alveolar, /L/ is a lateral > >> >> fricative, /3/ is a consonantal version of /@/ (schwa - or > >> >> more specifically a raised and centralized close-mid back > >> >> vowel). > >> > > >> >What? How can /@/ be pronounced as a consonant? > >> > >> Easy! Consider English /r/ and then the American English retroflexed > >> vowel in words like 'bird' and 'heard'. English /r/ could be seen as a > >> consonantal version of the retroflexed vowel. > > > >That's true, but that doesn't change the fact that /@/ (as opposed to > >[@]) can't be a consonant. /@/ in most dialects either has no allophones > >at all, or can alternate only with another vowel, [V], but in no case that I know > >of can it be allophonically a consonant. Moreover, /r/, /r=/ and /@/ are > >all separate phonemes, with only the first, a retroflex approximant, being > >nonvocalic (approximants are technically neither vowels nor consonants). > > I'm not sure what you are trying to tell me, but perhaps you have > misunderstood something.
Sorry! I was jumping into the middle of the conversation, so it seemed like a reasonable response. I don't mean to tell you how you should distribute phonemes in your language ;-)
> You snipped a couple of things from my last post as well cause I could > have sworn I mentioned that English wasn't a very good example.
Actually, no, IIRC I was responding only to your post, which was a response to Nik's who had clipped most of what you had said. I apologize for not going back to look at previous posts. ====================================== Tom Wier <artabanos@...> ICQ#: 4315704 AIM: trwier "Cogito ergo sum, sed credo ergo ero." ======================================