From: iad@cogsci.ed.ac.uk (Ivan A Derzhanski)
Newsgroups: sci.lang,alt.usage.english
Subject: Re: ASCII representation of IPA (second draft) and call for examples
Date: 4 Oct 92 13:51:31 GMT
Organization: Centre for Cognitive Science, Edinburgh, UK

In article <1992Oct2.160732.3418@hplabsz.hpl.hp.com> evan@hpl.hp.com (Evan Kirshenbaum) writes:
>In article <10914@hogg.ed.ac.uk> iad@cogsci.ed.ac.uk (Ivan A Derzhanski) writes:
>>Having /~/ for /<nsd>/
>>after vowels and /<fsd>/ after consonants _and_ something else for
>>/<fsd>/ after vowels (whether or not it also stands for /<mrm>/ or
>>something after consonants) looks like asking for trouble.
>
>Sigh.  You're right, of course: this is undoubtedly one of the weakest
>points of the proposal.  When trying to cram so many distinctions into
>so few characters, however, it seems a shame to use a diacritic in a
>way that only applies to a fraction of the segments.

But the fraction of the segments that can be pharyngealised includes
all vowels and many if not most consonants.  If /~/ means /<fsd>/ with
part of the segments, I think consistency demands that it mean /<fsd>/
with all segments to which that feature can apply at all.  It may mean
something else with segments which can't be pharyngealised (I see /?~/
as a good way to represent the Iraqw pharyngeal stop).

>Also, most languages will probably cooperate by only marking one of
>the two uses of a given diacritic

Oh, yes.  Such things can be explained in the preamble.

  "Velarised: /t~ d~ t!~ k!~/.
   Pharyngealised: /N~/.
   Laryngealised: /m~/."

(This is from the !Xu~ table in Ian Maddieson's _Patters of Sounds_.
When I saw his tables of Bulgarian and Russian, printed side by side,
I felt like throwing the book into the rubbish bin under the table;
but some of the other data may be usable, particularly concerning
coo"ccurence of features.)

>(how many languages have both ejectives and implosives?).

Quite a few.  But I don't think any language distinguishes between an
ejective and an implosive version of the same segment.  I'll check.

>It's probably also not a good idea to
>mark {fzd} differently for consonants and vowels

My point exactly.

>if it really is the same secondary articulation in both cases.

I only know that it is called the same, and
therefore I suppose that it is the same secondary articulation.

>Perhaps we should use "~"
>only for velarization on consonants and mark pharyngealization with <H>.

This is certainly possible.

>Why do the two have the same IPA diacritic?

They actually don't.  In the books I checked the tilde goes beneath
the letter for /<fsd>/, across it for /<vsd>/, and above it for /<nsd>/.
It is a great pity that we only have one tilde here, a pretty high one
at that.

>And can you velarize vowels?

No, but you can have vowels "with velar structure".  Maddieson says so.
He also says that there are "retroflexed" vowels.  (The double quotes
indicate that I have no idea what these sound like.)

-- 
 `If ye hiv ears oan yer heid - then use them tae lissen.' (The Glasgow Gospel)
Ivan A Derzhanski   (iad@cogsci.ed.ac.uk;  iad@chaos.cs.brandeis.edu)
* Centre for Cognitive Science,  2 Buccleuch Place,  Edinburgh EH8 9LW,  UK
* Cowan House, Pollock Halls, 18 Holyrood Park Road, Edinburgh EH16 5BD, UK
Newsgroups: sci.lang