Re: THEORY: Feature geometry for uvulars/pharyngeals

----- Original Message -----
From: "Julien Eychenne" <je@...>
To: <CONLANG@...>
Sent: Friday, June 27, 2003 2:20 PM
Subject: Re: THEORY: Feature geometry for uvulars/pharyngeals


> Hi,
>
> Jörg Rhiemeier a écrit :
> > JS Bangs <jaspax@...> writes:
> >
> >
> >>I've been poking around for a while, and I'm really stymied trying to
find
> >>out how to fit uvulars and pharyngeals into a feature geometric system.
> >>I've gotten a couple of fragmentary descriptions from here and there,
but
> >>nothing very conclusive or helpful.
> >
> >
> > I don't think it makes much sense to group uvulars and pharyngeals
> > together.  They aren't really that alike, phonetically.
>
> I'm sorry but I think they are. They do form a natural class with
> glottals and pharyngeals in many languages (classical arabic is a well
> known example).
>
>
> >>       The best I can get is that there's two
> >>possibilities:
> >>
> >>A privative feature [pharyngeal] under the Place node (but what about
> >>distinguishing uvulars from pharyngeals?).
> >
> >
> > Uvulars are not [pharyngeal] in any meaningful sense.
>
> But [pharyngeal] is just a label. Maybe [guttural] is more appropriate,
> though I personnally prefer [pharyngeal]. It's just like saying that [i]
> is [coronal] : it doesn't make sense on its own, but it is a rough label
> that allows you to have a unified treatment of consonants and vowels.
I think you're thinking of Laryngeals.  Pharyngeals are a specific place in
the mouth.

> Regards,
>
> Julien.
>

Reply