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

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.

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