Re: IPA griefs

On Sun, 22 Oct 2000 21:14:33 -0400 "H. S. Teoh" <hsteoh@...>
writes:
> OK, I've just been listening to some of the IPA sound clips I got off
> Taliesin's FTP site, and found out that 5 of the IPA symbols I put
> on my
> conlang's webpage were totally wrong. In fact, the IPA
> transcriptions I've
> been using in my posts are wrong, for these 5 sounds...  but the
> worst
> part is, I don't know what the right symbols might be! :-(
>
> So I need some help here, to get the right IPA sounds.
I'll give it a try...

> What I labelled the "palatals" on my webpage turned out to be not
> palatals
> at all... at least as far as I can tell from the sound clips. In
> particular:
> 1) _C_ is the ch sound in English "chance" -- is that /tS/ or
> something
>   like that?
Yeah, it's /tS/. In your case it would be more like /tSh/.

> 2) _c_ is the non-aspirate version of _C_. I don't even know if IPA
> has a
>   different representation for this sound; but my conlang definitely
> makes
>   a clear distinction here.
This is your /tS/. (Your "nonaspirate" stops/affricates don't happen to
be ejectives do they?)

> 3) _j_ is the voiced version of _c_, and is like the English "soft
> g"
>   (such as in "germaine"). Unlike the English 'j', this sound is
> more
>   palatal than alveolar (and definitely not dental). What could the
> IPA
>   symbol be?
/dZ/

> 4) _jh_ is the fricatized version of _j_. I don't know offhand of
>   any natlangs I know that has this sound, so I can't give an
> example.
/Z/:
English "viSIon", "leiSure", "garaGE"
French and Portuguese g before e/i, j in all cases
The Russian letter that resembles two K's back to back

> 5) _ch_ is like the English "sh"... and is basically the fricatized
>   version of _c_, or the unvoiced version of _jh_.
/S/

> Somehow, my ears tell me that these consonants belong to the same
> type
> (dental, labial, ...) but I must be misunderstanding something
> here...
The term varies. I've seen "postalveolar", "prepalatal",
"palatoalveolar". Never use the term "palatal" however; that's reserved
for the likes of IPA /c/, /ç/, /j/ "key", "ich" (German) and "you".

DaW.