Re: Rating Languages

In a message dated 9/26/2001 8:25:29 PM Pacific Daylight Time,
fortytwo@GDN.NET writes:


> Yeah, I've noticed that /k/ and /g/ are a much harder pair to
> distinguish in Japanese than /p/ and /b/ or /t/ and /d/.  Is there
> something about the velar POA that makes them harder to distinguish?
> Japanese uses [N] as a free allophone of /g/ in non-initial positions,
> so when that allophone is used, its very easy to distinguish from /k/,
>
     Yes, in a word.  Voicing is harder to keep up the further you go back in
stops and in fricatives.  In fact, voicing is hard to keep up for
non-sibilants, so they often turn into stops, such as the [D] in the English
"the".  Our professor showed us most of the time that [D] is really [d_d]
(dental stop--is that the way to do it?).  But, yeah, there was some formula
he showed us for how, on stops, voicing becomes more and more difficult the
further back you go, and this can be shown where even in languages with a k/g
contrast, [k] appears more than [g] (a given), and all other voiced
consonants appear far more than [g] as well.  The reason has to do with
surface area and the aerodynamic voicing constraint...  We're learning this
right now, so I'm no expert--hopefully by the time the midterm rolls around I
will be.  :)

-David

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