Re: Click consonants

Herman Miller wrote:
>
> If the difference isn't phonemic in a particular language, it might be
nice
> to specify whether the accompaniment is voiced or voiceless, velar or
> uvular, aspirated or unaspirated, in free variation, etc., but that's a
> matter of how much detail the author wants to put into the phonological
> description.
But without that information, the description of the language is incomplete;
for sure, someone learning to speak the lang. needs the information. (Though
it may be incidental to someone who's merely analyzing it to see, for ex.,
what the word-order rules are.)

Some languages distinguish between [t_d] (dental), [t_-]
> (alveolar), and [t`] (retroflex), but that doesn't mean that you need to
> specify whether your language's /t/ is dental or alveolar if the
difference
> isn't phonemic.
>
FWIW, in Malay/Indonesian, /t/ is dental but /d/ is alveolar. If you don't
learn that, you'll "sound funny"-- a minor, but unecessary, fault.

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