Re: another silly phonology question

At 11:00 pm -0500 27/11/00, H. S. Teoh wrote:
>On Mon, Nov 27, 2000 at 10:24:27PM -0500, Yoon Ha Lee wrote:
[...]
>> languages and got confused.  Are there certain tendencies for *how*
>> language phonologies violate symmetry, when they do?
>
>I'll let better-clued list members answer that, but I'd like to say that
>symmetry in languages is not 100%.
Indeed - it's difficult to think of any natlangs (or even conlangs) with
100% symmetry.  There is, as I see it, only a tendency towards symmetry;
and sound changes develop that upset that symmetry and the languages tries
to achieve another symmetry which again gets upset and so on.

>For example, English has [h] but no
>other glottals (at least not that I'm aware of).
Oh yes it does. Probably now the majority (certainly a very large number)
of colloquial Brit English dialects have [?] which is the way /t/ is
pronounced in medial and final positions in those dialects.

But this, again, upsets symmetry as /d/ cannot, of course, be subject to
similar allophonic variation since a voiced glottal plosive is a physical
impossibility.

[....]
>
>On that note, the /kh/ in Malay seems like an asymmetric sound -- there is
>no voiced version of it, unlike /s/ and /z/. The /sy/ or /sh/ (pronounced
>either [S] or [C]) also seems rather odd, since there are no other
>palatals in Malay (that I'm aware of).
>
>Hmm, why do I keep getting the feeling that I'm making an utter fool of
>myself here? :-P
I don't think you are.

In Welsh the only fricatives that have both voiced and voiceless
counterparts are the labiodental and dental ones: {f} [v] ~ {ff} [f]; {dd}
[D] ~ {th} [T].   The other three have only voiceless versions, the voiced
forms do not occur even as allophones: {s} [s];  {ch} [x]; {ll} [K].

Arabic has the pairs /k/ ~ /g/; /t/ ~ /d/, but only /b/, there being no /p/.

And so on, and so on.
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At 8:29 pm -0800 27/11/00, Marcus Smith wrote:
>Yoon Ha Lee wrote:
[....]
>>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].
{sigh} I wish 'twere true.

But I hear the darn glottal stop hundreds of times everyday - and I'll hear
over and over again today.  But I'll hear [h] very few times.

The vast majority of my students (and my younger colleagues) seem incapable
of pronouncing [h] at all; and they seem equally incapable of pronouncing
[t] if it is medial or final, habitually substituting [?] which, believe
me, is quite audible.


>I don't think this is just my English intuitions interfering,
Obviously not familiar with the English of England   :)

Ray.

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A mind which thinks at its own expense
will always interfere with language.
                   [J.G. Hamann 1760]
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