Re: [tied] Re: Glottalic thought-experiments

----- Original Message -----
From: "Miguel Carrasquer" <mcv@...>
To: <cybalist@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Wednesday, April 02, 2003 5:38 PM
Subject: Re: [tied] Re: Glottalic thought-experiments


> Obviously, the Classical Armenian pronunciation was closer to that of
> modern Eastern Armenian (where they are pronounced /th/, /t'/, /d/)
> than that of Western Armenian (where they are pronounced /th/, /d/,
> /th/, approximately).

Certainly. But "closer" need not mean "the same", especially if the two stages are 1500 years apart. Secondary glottalisation of relatively recent origin is perfectly possible (British English is a good example).

> <t`> is -voiced +aspirated, and <t> is -voiced -aspirated, or, equivalently, <t`> is +voiceless -glottalized, <t> is +voiceless +glottalized.

[+/-voiceless] (applied to obstruents) is a suspect feature from the point of view of phonological theory. But if we use [-/+voiced] instead, then [+glottalised] becomes an alternative way of saying [-aspirated]. The latter may be preferable if phonetic aspiration is obligatory while phonetic glottalisation is optional.

Piotr