Re: another silly phonology question

Yoon Ha Lee wrote:

>I've been trying to look at phonologies and how symmetry tends to operate
>in them.  I'm probably noticing out of a weird sample, but there seem to
>be a number of languages that just have /h/ as a glottal.  Is there a
>reason for this?
My guess would be perceptibility. A glottal stop is much more difficult to
hear than [h]. I don't think this is just my English intuitions
interfering, because Pima is more likely to delete the glottal stop than
the glottal fricative in intervocalic contexts. (Pima, BTW, has a phonemic
distinction between /?/ and /h/ in all environments.) Chickasaw also has
rules that treat /?/ as exceptional but treat /h/ like the rest of the
segments.

>   I was almost going to delete /h/ from Chevraqis because
>I didn't like just having *one* glottal, but looked at some actual
>languages and got confused.  Are there certain tendencies for *how*
>language phonologies violate symmetry, when they do?
It seems to me that this was discussed a number of months ago, but that may
have been a class of mine.

Take a the classical series:

p t k
b d g
f s x
v z G

If any voiceless stop is missing, it is most likely /p/.  If a voiced one
is missing, it is most likely /g/. Why? I don't know. If you do not have a
contrast in the stops, then you probably have voiceless, unaspirated stops.

If you are missing a fricative, it is probably one of the velars. If you
are missing an entire row of fricatives, it is probably the voiced. /s/ is
almost never missing. (Many Australian languages have no phonemic fricatives.)

There are probably lots more, but these are all that I can think of.

One thing to remember though is that many languages are asymmetric. People
like to talk about symmetry, but it is often the case that the systems
presented are idealized. I have never worked with language with a perfectly
symmetrical phonemic inventory.


>YHL
>
>P.S.  After missing bunches of messages I now realize that OT probably
>means optimality theory.  I kept thinking, "It can't be 'Old Testament,'
>but what *could* it be?"  <Wry g>  Thanks to Roger (was it you?) for
>posting that website on phonology--I mean to look at it carefully *after*
>I get some of my homework out of the way....


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Marcus Smith
AIM:  Anaakoot
"When you lose a language, it's like
dropping a bomb on a museum."
   -- Kenneth Hale
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