Re: Number

YHL wrote:

> <rueful look>  If [M] is the "upside down m" (rendered in
> Kirschenbaum as [u-]?)
Yes. The unrounded version of [u]. But wait, isn't [u-] the
close rounded central vowel often described as "Swedish u"?
*checking* No, that's right. I must have been thinking about
SAMPA or something. *checking again* No. *scratching head*
Where did I get the [M] = [u-] from? Hmm...

> I liked it too, but there was something in my
> abortive attempt at taking a phonology/phonetics intro class that
> suggested the [M] was asymmetric and it *should* be [u].  Then again,
> I stole it off Japanese...I did want to keep it.  <sigh>  Do you
> think the linguistics/phonology police might catch me if I changed it
> back...?
Well, it works for Japanese doesn't it? I don't know much about
Japanese, but don't they have [i] [e] [a] [o] [u-]? That would
make it work for Czevraqis as well. Plus, who cares if it's
assymetric? :)

> I was trying to figure out how in the heck you would hear a [?]
> before a vowel <rueful look> since the prof for that class told us
> that technically when you say a vowel (without something else before
> it??) there's always a glottal stop, so if you said [qaItSaref] by
> itself, how would you know?  :-/  The somewhat tentative fix for that
> was to make {q} [?] between two vowels, [x] otherwise.  <looking
> around hopefully>
LOL! :)

I think that if a language makes a phonemic distinction between
words that begin with just a vowel and words that can begin with
a glottal stop, then the speakers can probably without any problems
pronounce a word beginning in a vowel without the glottal stop.

Although your tentative fix seems fine to me. <nodding encouragingly> :)

||| daniel, going back to watch the world championships in Edmonton
    on TV. Go Sweden!!!