Re: Implosive consonants, dynamism, moods

Carsten Becker scripsit:

> 1.  Has already been explained. Place your tongue at the normal places,
>     but breathe in instead of out when you pronounce the phoneme.
>     Looking up in my DE <-> EN dictionary, "schnalzen" is "to click
>     one's tongue" in English. That implies even "schnalzen" is about
>     clicks.  E.g. put the tip of your tongue at your upper teeth,
>     but the "body" of the tongue must be lower than the tip and must
>     be kind of tense, similar to when you pronounce [l] (a plain [l],
>     not a "dark l" as in English).  Then pull down the tip of your
>     tongue, and you'll produce the sound like horses do with their
>     hooves. I wonder whether this may be this is an alveolar click?
That's a click, but it's not an implosive.  Implosives involve a closure
at the glottis, not the velum, and involve the vocal cords.  Rather than
sounding like a click, pop, or smack, they sound sort of like choking or
gagging slightly.  So implosive b is made by making a closure at the
lips and the glottis and then lowering the larynx to create a partial
vacuum in the mouth; one then supplies a little air from the lungs with
the vocal cords activated, opening the glottis, and then open the lips.

The generic term for implosives and clicks is "ingressives".

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John Cowan  jcowan@reutershealth.com  www.reutershealth.com  www.ccil.org/~cowan
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