Re: [tied] Laryngeal theory as an unnatural

On Mon, 10 Feb 2003 19:26:18 -0000, "P&G" <petegray@...>
wrote:

>> You side with Miguel on this je-ne-sais-quoi that distinguishes
>> /n/ and /m/.
>> You and Miguel fail to elaborate on what it is.
>> This therefore remains conjecture.
>
>Alas it is far from conjecture. /n/ is in the dental region, /m/ not. We
>know from the behaviour of other phonemes that those in the dental region
>are more sharply differentiated, and more susceptible to various soundlaws.
>There is no problem in a vowel having a different reflex in the vicinity of
>/n/, from that which it has in vicinity of /m/.

In fact we have been discussing just that, ad nauseam, in the case of
Romanian, where we have the soundlaws:

_nV _mV _nC _mC _mn
ó ú ó ú ó ó
o u u u u u
é í é í í é
É íe>í é í í é
e e e e e e

An interesting discussion of the differences between different nasals,
such as the frequency of the anti-resonance ("nasal zero") can also be
found in Ladefoged & Maddieson "The sounds of the world's languages",
on pages 116-118.


=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
mcv@...