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Velar approximant?

From:H. S. Teoh <hsteoh@...>
Date:Tuesday, February 17, 2004, 16:36
Dear CONLANG phonologists,

Recently I've been considering again what exactly is denoted by the smooth
breathing mark on Ebisédian vowels. In the Roman orthography, the smooth
breathing is indicated by what the "tear-drop" accent, a teardrop-shaped
diacritic over the vowel. In ASCII orthography, this is indicated by a
prefixed backtick (`). For the vowels _u_, _w_, and _y_, the meaning of
this "tear-drop" accent is quite clear:
	`u = [wu]
	`w = [w8]
	`y = [Hy]

However, it is rather unclear what it means when applied to open vowels
like _0_ [A] or _a_ [a]. Previously, I had described it as being preceded
with a semivowelized form of the same vowel, eg., _`a_ = [a_^a].
Recently, however, from my observation of Ebisédian pronunciation, it
seems that the sound is perhaps better described as a velar approximant.
I.e., _`a_ is really [M\a], and _`o_ is [M\o]. (Although it is unclear
whether _`o_ is really [M\o] rather than [7_^o].)

Does anyone have a recording of [M\] so that I can confirm my findings?
:-)


T

--
Two American lawyers went down to the beach for a swim. Seeing a canoe rental
nearby, one asked the other, "Roe, or Wade?"

Replies

Andreas Johansson <andjo@...>
Alexandre Lang <allexpro@...>syllable importance