From phm@xxx.xxx Tue Dec 1 11:45:50 1998 X-Digest-Num: 21 Message-ID: <44114.21.89.959273823@eGroups.com> Date: Tue, 1 Dec 1998 20:45:50 +0100 (CET) From: PILCH Hartmut > For a conlang, one of these two distributions would have to be chosen. > > I'd prefer to avoid the choice and use only a non-palatalized /x/. > > > > I would have thought that we could just as easily leave it up to the speaker. I > palatalise all the time, simply because I prefer the sound. in all languages I know of that have the allophony between palatal and non-palatal velars, non-palatization is the default variant and palatalization is brought about only by the proximity of /i/ or other front vowels. Usually (in Greek, slavic languages, Chinese, Japanese) it is the subsequent vowel that brings about this change. It would thus be fair to see the palatized /x/ as a composite sound, consisting of the non-palatized plus an /i/ feature. you could also call it a sandhi form, an interim stage in the disintegration of phonemic systems that often occurs in language history. leaving things up to the speaker can easily mean leaving them to the prisoner's dilemma or some other ineluctable mechanism. At least a mechanism that will never produce a logical language. co'o mi'e pilxartmut -- Hartmut Pilch http://www.a2e.de/phm/