Re: vowel harmony

--- In conlang@yahoogroups.com, Tom Chappell wrote:

> I completely forgot about phonation, John!
> Thanks for reminding me.
You're welcome; and this way I also get to see your latest readings on
the subject...


> (...) That leaves the following nine phonation types as possible
> distinctive features of segments;
> Breath,
> Creak,
> Modal or Normal Voice,
> Nil,
> Whisper,
> Breathy Voice,
> Creaky Voice,
> Creaky Whisper,
> Whispery Voice.
How do these map to the usual phonation terms? I'd guess that
nil = no airflow
breath = unvoiced
breathy voice = breathy phonation
creak = creaky phonation
creaky voice = tense phonation
creaky whisper = tense unvoiced phonation
whispery voice = lax phonation
...but that leaves the problem on how regular "Whisper" is supposed to
differ from "Breath".

Also, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phonation claims that Unvoiced,
Breathy/Murmured, Slack/Lax, Modal, Stiff/Tense, Creaky and
Glottalized simply form a series with respect to the aperture of the
glottis. The article for creaky voice mentions compression of the
larynx also being involved there. Laver's combining phonations would
have to involve additional articulators for falsetto and whisper, too;
but I don't really see what they would be...


> On pp. 278-280 (section 10.4 "Labial Elements of Vocoid Segments),
> Laver says there are actually four levels of roundedness
> available: stretched, neutral, open-rounded, and close-rounded.
> If the lips are expanded horizontally, then, no matter what happens
> vertically, the sound will be perceived as "stretched".
> If the lips are neither expanded horizontally nor contracted
> horizontally, then, regardless of what happens vertically, the sound
> will be perceived as "neutral" in regard to rounding.
I don't think any natlang makes any difference between stretched and
unrounded vowels? Stretchedness seems to remain a phonetic detail of
front vowels, unlike rounding.


> If the lips are contracted horizontally and expanded vertically,
> then the sound will be perceived as "open-rounded".
I call this "o"-roundedness, and can split it into 2-3 different
degrees of aperture (roughly equivalent with /o O Q/)


> If the lips are contracted horizontally and not expanded
> vertically -- either contracted vertically, or left in their
> neutral position vertically -- the sound will be perceived as
> "close-rounded".
And this I call "u"-roundedness.

...Now, what about the third dimension, that is, extending the lips
forwards or pulling them inwards? This is easiest if the lips are
horizontally compressed, but it is not a requisite.
The case of contrasting /y y_c/, IIRC, mentioned this as the basic
difference, tho I guess horizontal aperture may have played a part too.


> > > I don't think anyone has even proposed that Nasal vs. notNasal
> > > can be given a third value.
> >
> > How about oral vs. nasal approximant vs. nareal fricative? ...
> > Hell, I can even pronounce nareal *trills*! :)
> >
> > (Of course, I can only make these work if the oral component is a
> > stop. But nevertheless, it's certainly possible to have more than
> > two values of nasality...)
>
> Well, that's true, but fricatives and trills and stops aren't
> vowels. I was saying that nasality or the lack of it _for vowels_
> was an all-or-nothing thing.
Then again, nareal fricatives/trills aren't fricatives/trills any more
than nasal stops are approximants. It's a feature of the nasal tract,
not the oral one. Your point does stand, however.


> And I was wrong.
>
> On pp. 291-295, section 10.9 "Nasal Vocoid Articulation", Laver says
> there are two degrees of nasality of vocoids in the Applecross
> dialect of Scottish Gaelic.  But his best evidence is in Palantla
> Chinantec an Otomanguean Mesoamerican language -- he quotes a
> reference whith a minimal triplet, ?e 'leach', ?e~ 'count', ?e~~
> 'chase', all identical in tone.  He also mentions Breton and Bengali
> as well.
Do you know what're the articulatory phonetics in play at here? Is it
just about the degree of lowering of the velum or something more devious?


> > Couldn't the frequent POA assimilation of nasal+plosive clusters
> > (and maybe some other sorts of clusters too) be considered a sort
> > of consonant harmony?
> Nothing that happens just to clusters is really "harmony", by the
> definition I just quoted; it has to happen to separated phonemes as
> well somehow, to count as "harmony".
Yes, that's the definition. But to reverse my wording - harmony could
be interpreted as some sort of long-range assimilation. The two
phenomena are, from a single individual phoneme's view, identical:
phoneme X says to phoneme Y "You must have the same POA (or other
feature) as me". That's all I was saying.


>   Thanks for writing,
>
>   Tom H.C. in MI
My pleasure.

John Vertical