Re: Emphatics

BP Jonsson wrote:

> [...]
> >AFAIK, Arabic emphatic consonants are velarized and lateralized.
>
> IIRC Arabic emphatic consonants are realized as velarized OR lateralized OR
> pharyngealized, depending on variety -- tho it occurs to me that the
> ephatic lateral in the word _Allah_ must be something other than lateralized!
AFAIK :-), the emphatic _l_ occurs ONLY in the word _Allah_ and ONLY in some
situations. There are the letters for emphatic _t_, _d_, _s_, _z_ (or _D_) but
no letter for emphatic _l_. Besides I meant Classical Arabic.

> The etymologically equivalent sounds in Amharic (Ethiopia) and in at least
> some modern Aramaic varieties (Syria, Turkey, Iran) are ejective.
> According to Roman Jakobson the common factor of all "emphatic" articulations
> in Semitic languages is greater acoustic "gravity" than for the corresponding
> "plain" sounds.
Tell me a few words about this "gravity", svp.

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