--- In phoNet@yahoogroups.com, "H.M. Hubey" <HubeyH@M...> wrote:

> Of course. There has to be some correlation between perception and
> articulation. "nearest-neighbor"
> refers both to the perceptual and articulatory properties but if

they

> are correlated then "no problem".
>
> It is because they are correlated that linguists can freely give

both

> articulatory and acoustic
> descriptions of phonemes with the implicit assumption that one can

be

> derived from the other
> to a good degree of approximation.

A very detailed articulatory description should imply the acoustics,
but I'm not sure that the relationship can always or accurately be
inverted. If it was as easy as you say, phoneticists wouldn't use
palatograms and the like in field work. I thought there was a
reference to the tools of the trade in the archives, but I couldn't
find it. However, take a look at the references in Message 343 for
rhoticity.

A partial engineering analogy is with attitude. If you represent it
by three angles, e.g. by successive yaw, pitch and roll motions
about axes fixed in the body, you find a singularity at a pitch of
±90°. (The singularity is in the representation, not the nature of
attitude.)

More to the point, it seems that [p\], [f], [T], [s] and [x] are all
close to [h]. Or are we just looking at a shift from a fricative to
an approximant when these fricatives fade out? Voiceless
approximants are silent :)

Richard.