Re: Time to play Identify Those Phones, and a bit of a pharyngeal question

Eric Christopherson wrote:
>>
>> Eric Christopherson wrote:
>>
>> >The two sounds I'm wondering about are like crosses between [s]
>> and [T]. The
>> >first one seems to be about the same as [s], except that the tip of the
>> >tongue is placed against the bottom teeth, and friction is
>> produced between
>> >the top teeth and the tongue body. The second sound is similar, but the
>> >tongue sticks out between the teeth a bit, resting on the bottom ones and
>> >creating friction against the top. Does anyone know what
>> terminology I would
>> >use to describe these, and what IPA symbols to use for them?
>>
>>
>> The first one is a dental fricative. The second one is an interdental
>> fricative. They are not known to be contrastive, so both are represented
>> in the IPA by symbols representing dental fricatives (eg. theta or eth).
>> But since languages that have them consistently uses one or the other, it
>> is possible in the IPA to represent the second one with a 'subscript plus'
>> in phonetic transcription.
>
>Hmm, neither of them is the same as the way I form a dental fricative (i.e.
>with the tongue blade against the top front teeth). There's no more specific
>way to notate that? Also on the subject of notation, is there a way to write
>[t] so that it's unambiguously seen as either alveolar or postalveolar? I
>see that there's a "dental" diacritic, but none for those two (I've been
>using the retraction diacritic for postalveolar).
>
>> >Also, what general effects do pharyngeals have on surrounding vowels? I
>> >remember reading that [i] became [E] and [u] became [O] in pharyngeal
>> >environments in some language, but I'm not sure. An explanation
>> of why they
>> >are influenced that way would help as well. Thanks!
>>
>[snip]
>> these vowels is fairly obvious. While the retraction of these vowels
>> can be seen when comparing where the narrowest constriction is in [u]
>> and [O]; the narrowest constriction in [u] is in the velar (and labial)
>> area, in [O] it is in the uvular area. I'm not too sure about the process
>> of retraction with [i]>[E], though.
>
>So is [O] actually farther back than [u]? I thought all the back vowels had
>about the same degree of "backedness;" at least that's what the IPA chart's
>arrangement of them would have one believe.
>
>
>Eric Christopherson / *Aiworegs Ghristobhorosyo suHnus
>raccoon@elknet.net
>