At 5:20 pm -0300 8/3/99, 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/.
YES - it's common in Welsh, written as {rh}, and you've described it well.
It does contrasr with unaspirated /r/.
>
>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?
YES. Mandarin /sh/ is retroflex, /s/ is alveolar.
>3) Is it reasonable to have an aspiration contrast
>for nasals?
YES - Welsh has them.
>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?
You've got me on that one :=(
Ray.