Subject: [lojban] Re: [h] (was: RE: Re: Aesthetics

From: "And Rosta" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 8 Dec 2002 22:07:45 -0000

[I am conscious that we are straying to the margins of on-topicness
here, but it is also marginal to jboske too, so I haven't redirected
this reply thither.]

Adam:
> de'i li 2002-12-08 ti'u li 02:51:00 la'o zoi. And Rosta .zoi cusku di'e
> >Adam:
> >> de'i li 2002-12-08 ti'u li 00:06:00 la'o zoi. And Rosta .zoi cusku di'e
> >> >Furthermore, [ihi] is so difficult to articulate that I think we can
> >> >safely assume that nobody actually does say [ihi] 
> >> I, for one, certainly do say [ihi], and [coho] and everything else like
> >> that clearly, and it is quite distinct from an [x] 
> >I can believe very readily the bit about it being distinct from [x],
> >especially if you do the [x] scrapey. As for the [ihi] that you and
> >Lojbab report yourselves saying, well -- maybe I can listen when we
> >meet... It's not that I'm convinced that I'm right and you're wrong,
> >but [ihi] seems so incredibly difficult to articulate; I say [ic,i],
> >or else [i i_ i] (where i_ is breathy voiced) 
> 
> If by [c,] you mean a voiceless palatal fricative, then I can see what
> you mean, as my [h] in [ihi] does approach that, but it is still
> distinct. All sounds are affected to some extent by sounds in their
> environment, so the fact that the [h] of [ihi] is slightly different
> from the [h] of [aha] doesn't mean that it's not an [h]. The [p] of
> [po] is more rounded than the [p] of [pi], but they're still the same
> sound by all accounts 

IPA [p] covers all degrees of lip-protrusion (endolabiality/exolabiality).
It's true that in, say, English _head_ and _had_, the [h] has the
resonance of the following vowels: the frication/turbulence occurs
at the glottis and the resonating chamber is [E]-shaped or [a]-shaped.
The snag is that when the resonating chamber has the configuration
for a close vowel, I think the locus of frication/turbulence is
likely to become buccal, so that for /hi/ instead of [hi] we are
likelier to get [c,i] (and for /ihi/ even likelier to get [ic,i]).
In other words, to actually get [ihi] it is not enough to simply
switch off voicing; one must also increase the buccal aperture to
a degree sufficient to make the aperture at the glottis the narrowest
in the vowel tract. Clearly it is rather onerous for an averagely
lazy speaker to do all this extra opening and closing of the buccal
aperture, especially in ordinary rapid speech.

> >> >In other words, the problem is not only that [h] and [x] are rather
> >> >similar in isolation, but that there are phonological environments
> >> >where the contrast is unfeasibly difficult. I have seen it claimed
> >> >that [h] and [x] never contrast in natural languages, though John
> >> >has told me that he indirectly infers such a contrast from descriptions 
> >> >of Irish 
> >> 
> >> Arabic contains both, in addition to some other very similar consonants
> >> between them, and I am almost certain that it contrasts them. I'm
> >> pretty sure that German also contains both, though I don't know whether
> >> it contrasts them. Carefully enunciated Hebrew also contains both and
> >> contrasts them, 
> >
> >What are some minimal pairs? Ideally, flanked by [i] vowels.. 
> 
> You may have won a partial battle as far as the [i] vowels go, because
> Hebrew does forbid flanking a guttural sound with [i] or [u] (with the
> gutturals being [?] (normally dropped between vowels), [x], the voiced
> and voiceless pharyngeal fricatives in Biblical Hebrew, (which in
> Israeli Hebrew are [?] and [x], respectively), 

(I have only had the opportunity to study one Hebrew speaker: he was a
nonnative speaker of Hebrew who defected from the British army to fight 
alongside the founders of Israel, and he had the most amazing expectorant
pharyngeal fricatives (he was also a professional phonetician). Is that 
because his generation spoke Biblical Hebrew?)

> [h], and sometimes r) 
> However, [ihi] can still occur in foreign words, like [nihilizm] (and I
> assume that [ihi] must have occured in the word 'nihil' in Latin,
> otherwise the Romans wouldn't have written it like that), 

Surely you would not, on reflection, insist that because the Romans
wrote /ihi/ as <ihi> they must have pronounced it [ihi]?

> though I
> don't know of a contrast with [x]. Still, they do contrast in other
> positions. [ohel] means 'tent', whereas [oxel] means 'food', both are
> the same in Biblical Hebrew. It is a bit difficult to find examples in
> Biblical Hebrew, because the distribution of [x] is limited, it being
> an allophone of [k], but in Israeli Hebrew it is easier: [Sihek] means
> '(he) hiccoughed', whereas [Sixek] is a possible literary form for
> '(he) wore (something) down'. [mahul] means 'diluted', whereas [maxul]
> means 'forgiven', etc 

OK. Thanks. Are [x] and [k] no longer allophones?

--And.