laterals (was: Pharingials, /l/ vs. /r/ in Southeast Asia)

On Friday, February 6, 2004, at 10:21 AM, Andreas Johansson wrote:

> Quoting Ray Brown <ray.brown@...>:
[ship]

>> Some languages, e,g, the Dravidian languages have a 'retroflex lateral',
>> which, I guess, is a 'rhotic lateral'.
>
> As I mentioned shortly ago, some varieties of Swedish, including, since a
> couple of years, mine, has a retroflex lateral.
Yes, I was aware of it, but had forgotten it. Thanks for reminding me.

[snip]

>> I'm puzzled by lateral plosives and rhotic plosives.  Lateral fricatives
>> &
>> lateral
>> affricates I both understand and can pronounce easily enough. But lateral
>> plosive
>> puzzles me? What exactly is blocking the pulmonic airstream to cause the
>> plosion?
>
> The IPA chart provides a diacritic for "lateral release", with a laterally
> released 'd' as example.
True - but it also has diacritics for nasal release, with a nasally
released 'd' as
example. But I've never heard anyone talking about a 'nasal plosive'
(prenasalized
plosives, yes - they're not exactly uncommon. And I guess a plosive with
nasal release
could be described as post-nasalized).  Also, as you say, the sign is a
diacritic and marks
_release_ - it does not mark the place where the stop or occlusion is made.

> I'm not clear how this differs, or if it differs,
> from a voiced lateral affricate at the same POA, but abscence of friction
> could be a possibility.
It did occur to me after writing the email that the |tl| in Nahuatl might
denote this 'lateral
plosive'. I'd always understood it to be a lateral affricate, i.e. [tK].
But then I recalled that
we anglophones readily substitute a palatal affricate [tS] for the palatal
  plosive [c] in languages
like Malay /Indonesian. Am I guilty of the same 'slackness' with regard to
Nahuatl's |tl|?

Ray
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