[lojban-beginners] More phonology: voiced/unvoiced and fricative/fricative

[Klaus Schmirler <KSchmir@online.de>]

My main point against lojban is that it is letter-centric and not very 
sophisticated in the phonetic department. For instance, I would argue 
that each stop is inherently coupled with its release, and that t, ts, 
tc, tl or p and pf are one sound each. But to get on topic:

Among the rules for consonant clusters, I find the following:

Voiced/unvoiced pairs are forbidden except with l, m, n, r. Their 
distinction being that they can be syllabic, I guess. But so can v.

Combinations among c, j, s, z are forbidden. They are fricatives, but 
so are f, v, x and voiced x, an allophone of r.

Now there's a whole bunch of xr words:

xrabo Arabic
xrani injure
xriso Christian
xruba buckwheat
xruki turkey
xrula flower
xruti return

They taste best to my German palate when I pronounce them with an 
initial ach sound and then just add voicing. And I think one of the 
design principles (which admittedly I haven't found, or I'd have cited 
it above) was that sounds should be maximally distinct. So does [xR] 
count as maximally distinct - if so, I rest my case - or is the uvular 
r forbidden in this context?

Klaus