Re: VL - Vulcan in Vulcan Saul Epstein Tue, 21 Oct 1997 11:04:17 -0500 At 03:55 PM 10/20/97 -0500, Rob wrote: >At 11:36 AM 10/16/97 -0500, Saul wrote: > > >>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. Yes, if I were marking syllable boundaries. I would prefer to put a vertical bar beneath the /l/ and the /n/ to indicate that each is syllabic -- if I were doing that narrow a transcription. Such things tend to be "understood" by speakers and rarely appear in writing. >So, fricatives cause audible _friction_ noise by forcing air thru >a rigidly held apature but approximates just seem a little breathy >by comparison, right? The technical difference seems to be the narrowness of the aperature. That is, if air is forced between a very narrow space, the friction of its passage is audible, producing a fricative consonant; whereas if the space is not so narrow its obstruction acts merely to "shape" the sound, producing an approximant consonant. But this is an extremely fuzzy area. Approximants have also been called semi-vowels and "glides." But the difference between an approximant and a voiced fricative at the same point of articulation is tiny, and I doubt that there are any languages that have separate phonemes like that. >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? Yes. >So when saying the w~ one sould sort of purse the lips and force air >thru them hard. Well, hard enough to make a sound. ;-, And you don't necessarily have to have your lips PURSED, just close enough together that pushing air through them makes a sound. In technical terms, the lips can be "rounded" OR "spread" -- at least unless or until we decide it's one way or the other. >But what does the "lateral" mean? The primary component of /l/ differs from /r/ and /z/ in that air passes over both sides of the tongue on its way out of the mouth, rather than over the tip of the tongue. In fact that distinguishes /l/ from most other sounds. /l/ and it's voiceless counterpart are called "lateral" to indicate this. (Though /l/ is the lateral approximant and the voiceless version is the lateral fricative. ) So to pronounce /w~l/, the tip of the tongue is raised to a point behind the upper-front teeth while the lips are approximated, and air is forced out over the sides of the tongue and then through the lips. Now, boys and girls: can you say "W~L'q'n?" I knew that you could. -- from Saul Epstein liberty uit net www johnco cc ks us sepstein "Surak ow'pha:per the's'hi the's'cha'; the's'pha:dzhar the's'hi surakecha'." -- K'dvarin Ursw~l'at