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Re: Strange phonology

From:Tom Wier <artabanos@...>
Date:Tuesday, March 9, 1999, 1:28
FFlores wrote:

> I'd like to know your opinion on some sounds > I intend to have in a new language. > > 1) Have you ever heard of an aspirated trill? > I'm sure I've seen it somewhere, represented as > <rh>, which would be /r/ with a simultaneous > aspiration. I mean, it looks possible, but I don't > know if it exists anywhere and if it could contrast > with a non-aspirated trill /r/.
Well, I think so (it depends on whether you count voiceless trills as "aspirated", and probably also on the particular phonology you're looking at). I know Greek had quite a few of <rh>'s, where that represents a rho with a rough breathing mark, as in <rhet=F4r> "speaker". Old English, too, had something like that. One of the main figures in _Beowulf_ was the Danish king <Hro=FEgar>, and I presume that to be an aspirated /r/ (rather than <h> representing a velar fricative or something -- as I think has been pointed out elsewhere on the list recently, reconstructing ancient phonologies is easy, relatively speaking, but trying to figure out their actual phonetic values isn't that easy).
> 2) I want to have a retroflex (or maybe post-alveolar) > "s", contrasting with a normal alveolar /s/. Is this > reasonable? Is this retroflex "s" the one present > in Sanskrit, which is transliterated as "s" with a > dot below?
Sure. It's a totally unremarkable phone, as phonologies go. I believe you're right about the Sanskrit bit, but I'm no Sanskritist.
> 3) Is it reasonable to have an aspiration contrast > for nasals?
Sure, but that's not *as* common as regular voiced nasals. It's relatively abundant in a couple South East Asian languages (you might want to ask Kristian, I think it was, on this matter).
> 4) I just produced a sound more or less like the > one a child might produce when he sticks out the > tip of his tongue between his teeth, and blows. > I found in this way you can produce a trill > (makes your lower lip shake) or an approximant > (air going between the tongue and the lower lip), > though I don't know if they exist in any language, > or how to call them. What do you think?
Not quite sure how to explain that... =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D= =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D= =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D Tom Wier <artabanos@...> ICQ#: 4315704 AIM: Deuterotom Website: <http://www.angelfire.com/tx/eclectorium/> "Cogito ergo sum, sed credo ergo ero." There's nothing particularly wrong with the proletariat. It's the hamburgers of the proletariat that I have a problem with. - Alfred Wallace =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D= =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D= =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D