Re: Click consonants

On Sun, 7 Dec 2003 22:46:28 -0600, Eddy Ohlms <etg@...>
wrote:

>I notice that when people include clicks in their conlang, they make a
>number of mistakes.
"Mistake" is a matter of opinion when it comes to conlangs. A "mistake"
might be designing a human language with a velar click (which is impossible
to pronounce), but if a conlang has something odd like a labiodental click,
that's probably a design feature.

>1. If there are 3 click types, they are usually dental, palatal, and lateral
>alveolar. If there are 4, an alveolar click is added.
Not necessarily. You can't generalize from the few human languages with
clicks, especially if the speakers are non-human. Qiira Triicha has two
distinct alveolar clicks (a "tick" and a "tock", differing in pitch).
Dental clicks would be impossible for rodents with a gap in their teeth.

Besides, don't Zulu and Xhosa have alveolar (not palatal) clicks?

>2. Clicks have accompaniments. They must have one. These are usually velar
>consonants and are done when the velar closure of the click is released. If
>the lang distinguished aspiration, there will be a velar aspirated
>accompaniment, if there is voicing, /g/ will accompany it. Velar africates
>are also possible and the velar nasal is a common accompaniment.
But if there isn't any phonemic distinction in the click accompaniments,
there's no need to mention them explicitly (since all clicks have them by
definition).

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