Re: Pharingials, /l/ vs. /r/ in Southeast Asia

On Friday, February 6, 2004, at 01:16  PM, Christophe Grandsire wrote:

> En réponse à Amanda Babcock :
>
>
>> In other words, the various kinds of rhotic sounds, though they may
>> have nothing else in common, all reproduce some small fragment of a
>> growl,
>> and are thus perceived as alike by some very old part of our sound-
>> perceptual mechanism.
>
> Indeed. IIRC (someone better versed in acoustics can correct me if I'm
> wrong), all sounds called "rhotic" have something in common (I have in
> my head the phrase "low second formant", but it's probably wrong :)) > ).
It is wrong, but you're close; a lowered third formant is the cue for
rhotacization. A lowered second formant is the cue for backness (more
precisely, it's the difference between the second and first formant).

> Anyway, they have all acoustically something in common. Why they
> appear so different from each other is that this common trait can be
> produced in many different ways, but is always perceived the same. So
> rhoticity, acoustically speaking, is a very well-defined phenomenon,
> not something vague. It's a very specific acoustic phenomenon which
> just to be produced in a variety of ways which don't otherwise seem to
> have something in common.
Exactly.

Dirk
--
Dirk Elzinga
Dirk_Elzinga@byu.edu

"I believe that phonology is superior to music. It is more variable and
its pecuniary possibilities are far greater." - Erik Satie