On Sun, Dec 08, 2002 at 12:06:28AM -0000, And Rosta wrote:
> Jordan:
> > On Sat, Dec 07, 2002 at 03:28:24PM -0500, Craig wrote:
> > > Because there is a greater phonic contrast between [T] and [f] or [s] than
> > > between [h] and [x]
> >
> > I disagree. To me, [s] sounds almost like [T]. But [x] and [h]
> > sound *totally* different
> >
> > This line of reasoning is bogus anyway though; languages can divide
> > their sounds however they want
>
> Languages don't divide their sounds however they want. Or, if they
> do, then they all want to do it in similar ways. Accordingly, we
> can look at natural languages to see which sorts of contrast are
> easy and which are hard. [T] is very uncommon (contrasting with
> [s] and/or [t]). Contrast between [h] and [x] is even more uncommon.
The reason most languages "want to do it in similar ways" is due
to two obvious things: (a) common history/cultural diffusion/whathaveyou,
and (b) the range of possible speech-sounds humans make. Languages
which are very different in history from, say, english, divide their
sounds in drastically different ways (e.g. khoisan stuff). But
what I'm *actually* talking about (I gather you weren't really
reading) is that different languages distinguish on things others
don't. For example in english the automatic aspiration of "p" at
the beginning of words is not considered a different sound than
normal "p", but to a mandarin speaker (ti'e) aspiration of "p"
sounds quite different than the normal "p" sound.
> There are real books where one can read about this stuff. We don't
> have to rely on our own fallible intuitions here.
I can tell whether [s] and [T] sound alike, and whether [x] and [h]
sound alike *to me*. If you don't accept that, you can piss off.
--
Jordan DeLong - fracture@allusion.net
lu zo'o loi censa bakni cu terzba le zaltapla poi xagrai li'u
sei la mark. tuen. cusku
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