Re: Pharingials, /l/ vs. /r/ in Southeast Asia
| From: | Mark J. Reed <markjreed@...> |
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| Date: | Friday, February 6, 2004, 16:43 |
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On Fri, Feb 06, 2004 at 06:14:43AM +0000, Ray Brown wrote:
> For my part, I have no problem with the Pinyin representation of |r|.
> But 'rhotic' I find is itself a pretty vague term and people seem to use it
> fairly subjectively.
The category of sounds we call "rhotic" is a family-resemblance category.
That is to say, all rhotics have something in common with other rhotics, but
it's not always the same "something". Nevertheless, such seemingly disparate
sounds have been represented by the same letter of the Latin alphabet because
they are perceived in some sense as "the same sound".
-Mark