Re: Consonent Clusters at the End of Words Saul Epstein Wed, 12 Nov 1997 14:53:54 -0600 From: Rob Zook Date: Wednesday, November 12, 1997 12:41 PM >We have discussed the consonent clusters at the beginning of words >pretty thoroughly, and that leaves the one at the end of words. The >examples we have again are: > >rtc dth wl kht tc ct >rn >rc >rk > >It seems like an opposite rule in effect here for the ending clusters: >r and stops and r and fricatives. Also rtc and tc ct imply that one >can use these as well. Yes, although /tc/ is a special case in that it's a phoneme. At a guess, I'd say it operates as a stop on its "leading" edge and a fricative on its "following" edge. >So I would suggest that one can have: > >[any tap]+[any stop]: > >rp rb rt rd rk rg rq > >another: > >[any tap]+[any fricative]: > >rf rv rs rz rc rj rx rh These all look good. >and any of the normal [stop]+[fricative] combinations following >Sauls voicing rule: > >pf ps pc px ph > bv bz bj >tf (ts) (tc) tx th > dv dz (dj) >kf (ks) kc kx kh > gv gz gj >qf qs qc qx qh > >[fricative]+[stop] at the end of words, these would also need to >follow Sauls voicing rule, I think: > >fp sp cp xp hp > vb zb jb >ft st ct xt ht > vd zd jd >fk sk ck xk hk > vg zg jg >fq sq cq xq hq These also. >Finnally, we have , , and . only makes >sense to me as a final consonent if was a dental fricative >instead of the aspriated alveolar stop it would normally represent. > >Nor do any other combinations of voiced and voiceless stops of the >same or similar area of articulation seem to work: > >pb bp kg gk kq qk td The end of a word exerts its own de-voicing pressure on preceding sounds -- especially stops. The prospect of rapidly shifting -voice+voice-voice in a word-final context does indeed seem unlikely. +voice-voice-voice is much friendlier and not uncommon. It's a matter of ending the voicing before releasing the stop -- if you release the stop. English speakers typically don't release word-final stops, which makes sequences like dt a challenge to hear and to say. dth would actually be easier because the aspiration would force us to release the stop. >Perhaps, these clusters exist but at the end of the word, in the >form of voiced stop + voiceless stop if the final stop mutates >into it's voiceless fricative? > >In which case we could have: > >bf dth! gch* > >th! the voiceless dental fricative (like in English "thin") >ch* the voiceless alveolar fricative (like the in the German "ich") That would certainly be a fun rule. I think you mean "velar" though, which is the "ch" in German "buch" (and Vulcan's /x/). In "ich" the final sound is a palatal fricative. Also, since Vulcan doesn't otherwise have a dental fricative, we'd probably end up with a phonetic realization of [ds] for /dth/. >but I don't think the voiceless stop + voiced fricative could work > >pv tdh! kgh* > >dh! the voiced dental fricative (like in English "the") >gh* the voiced aveolar fricative (like the in tlhIngan Hol "ghob") Yeah. We run into word-final devoicing again. >Unfortunately, this does not seem quite consisant either, because >p -> f and k -> ch does not have the same relationship as t -> th. k -> x is the same relationship, though. As is p -> wh. Oh, wait. Do you mean the aspirate or the fricative th? >So maybe one should transcribe kai'idth, as kai'id'th instead. > > appears in k'wawl, and in this case the aw could be some kind >of vowel dipthong maybe /ao/? If not, perhaps you can have an >[approximate]+[lateral] at the end of a word: yl wl. It winds up being much the same thing. I tend to restrict approximates to occuring before vowels, but that's just me. >Or if /w/ >does indeed represent a voiced bilabial fricative as Saul suggests >it could mean you can have [fricative]+[labial] at the end of a >word: fl vl sl zl cl jl xl hl. Or we could change _this_ w to u. But the clusters above would be OK as well. We could expand it to fricative+approximant. French-flavored with l, Russian-flavored with y. They wouldn't phonetically be clusters, probably, but lateralized and palatalized consonants. >Did I understand you aright Saul? In your last message you suggested >/w/ was also a fricative. Since /wh/ is already the voiceless, that >would seem to make /w/ voiced. Frankly, I'd rather see a voiced >approximate with a voiceless allophone. Mm. The difference between a voiced approximate and a voiced fricative is tiny. The only thing I'm trying to do here is secure an orderly role for wh/w in the phonology. Even if /w/ is phonemically a fricative, it might almost always be pronounced as an approximant. >In any case that brings us to which could mean [aspirated stop]+ >[stop] are ok at the end of a word. Pronounced that way it make the >combination just as pronouncable as k't. Since we only know of three >aspirated stops that would give us: > >khp khb kht khd khk khg khq >th thb tht thd thk thg thq >dh dhb dht dhd dhk dhg dhq > >I kind of like these simply because of their exoticness. That could >give us words like qyoodhk or kakhg which look nice and tricky to >pronounce ;-) That almost makes it look like h is a voiceless form of <'>. -- from Saul Epstein liberty*uit,net http://www,johnco,cc,ks,us/~sepstein "Surak ow'phaaper thes'hi thes'tca'; thes'phaadjar thes'hi suraketca'." -- K'dvarin Urswhl'at