Re: VL - Vulcan in Vulcan
Rob Zook 
Mon, 20 Oct 1997 15:55:03 -0500

At 11:36 AM 10/16/97 -0500, Saul wrote:
<snip>

>In other words, the Vulcan word for planet Vulcan could probably just as
>accurately be written "w~lqn" from a phonetic perspective. Or so it 
>seems to me...

Or perhaps as w~l'qn to mark the syllable boundry.


>>w~l -           voicless bilabial fricative + lateral as one sound
<snip>
>>w~ does not sound like "w" in white, and I'm not sure what an initial
>>voiceless bilabial fricative is supposed to sound like, so for that
>>well, need some of our linguists to speak up.
>
>This is a complicated matter. Some people pronounce the initial sound in
>"white" as a normal /w/, which in most dialects of English is a
>simultaneous velar-bilabial approximant. That is, the back of the tongue 
>is brought close to the back of the roof of the mouth while the lips are 
>brought close to each other. Some people, when pronouncing "white," 
>precede the /w/ with a distinct /h/. Some grade school teachers make a 
>big deal out this, the supposed phonetic difference between "which" and 
>"witch," or between "whether" and "weather." This attempt to preserve 
>the Old English /hw/, cousin to the /qu/ of Latin, French, Spanish, et 
>al., is NOT what seems to be meant by /w~/.

So, fricatives cause audible _friction_ noise by forcing air thru 
a rigidly held apature but approximates just seem a little breathy
by comparison, right?

So in a chart like this one:

             labial  lab-dnt   dental  alv   alv-pal  velar  glottal
stop          p  b                     t d             k g     
fricative     w~       f v     th th   s z    sh zh             h
             ^^^  
affricate                                     ch j
approximant      w                     r l       y   
nasal            m                       n               ng
(where the first letter in a column is voiceless and the second voiced)
w~ would appear in the chart as above?

So when saying the w~ one sould sort of purse the lips and force air
thru them hard.

But what does the "lateral" mean?

Rob Z.
--------------------------------------------------------
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it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step 
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