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Re: Ant: Re: Linguistics: Final /?/ and /h/

From:Roger Mills <rfmilly@...>
Date:Monday, June 20, 2005, 20:54
Bob Thornton wrote:
> Aren't there SAmerican dialects of Spanish with > word-final /h/ where there once was /s/? >
As others have said, yes, widespread, esp. in Caribbean and Argentina, also in southern Spain. But at present I think we'd want to consider it allophonic. OK, some other areas with final /?/-- --Many Formosan and Philippine languages-- /?/ is a distinct phoneme. --Indonesian area: quite a few, usually as the result of neutralizing final-C contrasts. (Languages of Sulawesi in particular; theoretically one could debate whether the /?/ is simply the surface realization of underlying final-C's.) Malay/Indo. has [-?] but only as allophone of /-k/. --IIRC some of the mainland Austro-asiatic langs. have, or have been reconstructed with, /-?/. --Don't some Chinese lects have /-?/? Again, due to final-C neutralization IIRC. --Arabic/Semitic in general?? I'd think so, but don't know for sure. --N.American Indian langs. probably. --Caucasian, undoubtedly. Phonemic /?/ does seem to be rare in IE languages With final /h/-- Again, several Phil/Indonesian langs., either as a distinct phoneme of historical origin, or else due to sound shifts, like *s > h or *p > h. Beyond that, I can't say for sure. Caucasus? NA Indian? The problem is that /-h/ is so easily elided and/or lost.

Replies

Andreas Johansson <andjo@...>
Tim May <butsuri@...>