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Re: Transcription exercise

From:Paul Roser <pkroser@...>
Date:Thursday, September 21, 2006, 16:31
On Wed, 20 Sep 2006 22:02:27 -0500, Herman Miller <hmiller@...> wrote:

>> Herman Miller's Virelli is one of the few conlangs I've seen with a >> distinction between /hl, l/ and /hL, L/ (where L is the palatal lateral >> - HM uses a cedilla or something under the palatal phones). > >It shóuld technically be a comma below, but I use the precomposed ļ >character for convenience. Using l̦ (with a comma-below diacritic) might >not show up in some browsers and email programs. > >> I think that the distinction is more audible when there is a very clear >> front/palatal vs back/velar distinction between the two. > >Or if there are additional clues to the point of articulation, such as >palatal off-glides. Lindiga distinguishes between alveolar and retroflex >lateral fricatives. I think this might be an easier distinction to hear >than alveolar vs. palatal, but it's also helped by the allophonic >variation of the vowels in the vicinity of retroflex consonants.
I'd forgotten about Lindiga - the rhotacism of the vowel (especially preceding a retroflex) would be a very salient clue (as I'd assume it would be in Toda). I think that a very strongly articulated dorsopalatal lateral fric might also have a palatal onglide that would make it sufficiently distinct. One thing I've noticed about lateral fricatives is that I always make them bilaterally - with a medial obstruction and air escaping on both sides - whereas some languages have been described as unilateral - air escaping on one side. When I make unilateral fricatives they tend to all sound very similar, regardless of where the primary POA is (and I can make a retroflex unilateral fricative only with great difficulty). --Bfowol