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

From: Adam Raizen <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 09 Dec 2002 03:58:33 +0200

de'i li 2002-12-08 ti'u li 22:07:00 la'o zoi. And Rosta .zoi cusku di'e

>[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.

The shape of the resonating cavity is affected by the vowels
surrounding the sound, and certainly the tongue is much closer when
pronouncing the [h] of [ihi] than when pronouncing the [h] of [aha],
but there is not nearly enough friction for it to truly become a
palatal fricative. This is similar, IMO, to what happens with ".ii". I
pronounce it [ji], though the j gets close enough to the alveolar
region that sometimes a bit of friction can be heard, certainly more so
that when I pronounce [ja], but it is still nowhere near [Zi].

>> >> >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?)

The pharyngeals are not unique to the Biblical phase of Hebrew; I only
picked that because it is the only stage of Hebrew that I'm sure had
the pharyngeals and was spoken as the main language of a community.
Often Israeli Jews whose ancestry is from Arab lands and Israeli Arabs
retain the pharyngeals in their pronunciation of Israeli Hebrew (though
not the emphatic consonants, for some reason). If the person you knew
was not a native speaker of Hebrew, but was a phonetician, then it is
likely that he pronounced the pharyngeals because he could, and
considered it more authentic or accurate. Ashkenazic pronunciation of
Hebrew (the pronunciation of those communities coming ultimately from
European lands), which is to a significant degree the basis of the
pronunciation of Israeli Hebrew, lost the pharyngeals long ago.

>> [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]?

They must have pronounced it close enough to [ihi] to have written it
like that. If they pronounced it [iCi] I would think that it would
be at least as likely that they would have written it "isi" as
"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?

Complicated question. :-) In the prescriptive version of the language,
you still have to distribute historical [x] and [k] in the same way as
was done in Biblical Hebrew (well, actually Tiberian Hebrew, but
anyway), but /H/ is now pronounced [x] and does not follow the
historical rules of alternation. Descriptively, I think it is clear
that [x] and [k] are separate phonemes, though in most cases the old
rules are still adhered to in preexisting words (though not
completely). New words, however, are likely not to follow the
traditional rules of alternation, for example the modern word
[lekaxev], meaning 'to star (in a movie, etc.)', by the rules should be
[lexakev], but no one says it that way.

mu'o mi'e .adam.