Re: Why Not More Nasals!!!!? (was: Is this a realistic phonology?)

Nik Taylor wrote:

> Raymond A. Brown wrote:
> > Even in Europe it possible to find languages which, like Chinese, have no
> > voiced plosive phonemes but do have nasal phonemes.  Scots Gaelic is one
> > such language - the symbols {b}, {d} and {g} represent unaspirated
> > voiceless plosives while {p} {t} {c} represent the aspirated series.
>
> True, but unaspirated stops are effectively the same as voiced stops in
> those languages.
Well, I think the whole thing is a little silly to talk about, as it's really
a false dichotomy to say that this *is* one thing or the other.  Voicing is
a spectrum from full vibration to lots of aspiration (who knows how much,
really).   I tend to like Nik's analysis here, though, because the unaspirated
stops function *as if* they were voiced anyways, since they are by definition
close to *that* end of the spectrum.  When you're talking about phonemes,
the relative VOT is what counts, of course. :)


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Tom Wier <artabanos@...>
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