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Phonemic distinction labialized/rounded environments
Posted: Tue Apr 12, 2011 8:52 am
by jal
Well, I've created better titles, but anyway. I was wondering if any natlang has the following phonemic distinctions:
1) CʷwV vs. CwV (e.g. kʷwa vs. kwa)
2) CʷV[+round] vs. CV[+round] (e.g. kʷo vs. ko)
I would guess no for the first, yes for the second, but I thought I'd ask around.
JAL
Re: Phonemic distinction labialized/rounded environments
Posted: Tue Apr 12, 2011 8:57 am
by roninbodhisattva
1) I don't know
2) Yes.
Re: Phonemic distinction labialized/rounded environments
Posted: Tue Apr 12, 2011 12:31 pm
by Radius Solis
1. I don't know
2. Standard English, e.g. quote - coat.
Re: Phonemic distinction labialized/rounded environments
Posted: Tue Apr 12, 2011 1:16 pm
by jal
Radius Solis wrote:2. Standard English, e.g. quote - coat.
I would think quote/coat would be a case of [kʷwo] (or [kwo]) vs. [ko]?
JAL
Re: Phonemic distinction labialized/rounded environments
Posted: Tue Apr 12, 2011 1:45 pm
by Drydic
jal wrote:Radius Solis wrote:2. Standard English, e.g. quote - coat.
I would think quote/coat would be a case of [kʷwo] (or [kwo]) vs. [ko]?
JAL
Which is what he said, basically. Unless there's an invisible 3rd kʷwV vs kV option in your post.
Re: Phonemic distinction labialized/rounded environments
Posted: Tue Apr 12, 2011 2:41 pm
by Radius Solis
jal wrote:
I would think quote/coat would be a case of [kʷwo] (or [kwo]) vs. [ko]?
JAL
Time to look this up.
Maddieson and Ladefoged in SWL (1996) say that there are apparently no languages in which the labial component of [kʷ] is not either later or earlier than the velar component (which is also true of [k͡p]). The languages in which it is earlier are rare. For the rest, [kʷ] = [kw].
It's possible to make subjective arguments about the duration of the [w] component, or the degree to which the [k] component shows anticipatory rounding before the [w] component - but as no language is known (at least to SWL) to make a contrast on either basis, there seems little point.
Re: Phonemic distinction labialized/rounded environments
Posted: Tue Apr 12, 2011 2:46 pm
by CaesarVincens
Although of course we can't ask any speakers, Latin does distinguish <qui> /kwiː/ and <cui> /kui/.
The former is monosyllablic and the latter disyllabic, but both are bimoraic (which could be said to be more important in Latin following Armin Mester, 1994).
Re: Phonemic distinction labialized/rounded environments
Posted: Tue Apr 12, 2011 3:14 pm
by Bedelato
By certain accounts, Proto-Indo-European had a (marginal?) contrast between *kw and *kʷ.
Re: Phonemic distinction labialized/rounded environments
Posted: Wed Apr 13, 2011 11:02 am
by Radius Solis
Relevant to the foregoing discussion is a
post today on Language Log.
In particular, this part:
Mark Liberman wrote:... the phonological distinction between a doubly-articulated consonant and a cluster is not always phonetically plain — most consonant clusters are heavily co-articulated, and things that seem to be clearly single segments on phonotactic grounds (like aspirated stops in English, or /k͡p/ and /ɡ͡b/ in many African languages) nevertheless often have reliably sequenced sub-parts which correspond to things that might be independent segments in another context. This is one of many ways in which the "discrete beads on a string" nature of phonetic symbol sequences is articulatorily and acoustically misleading.
Re: Phonemic distinction labialized/rounded environments
Posted: Thu Apr 14, 2011 3:56 am
by jal
Thanks for that link (and thanks to everyone who responded so far).
JAL
Re: Phonemic distinction labialized/rounded environments
Posted: Thu Apr 14, 2011 10:18 am
by spats
Bedelato wrote:By certain accounts, Proto-Indo-European had a (marginal?) contrast between *kw and *kʷ.
Isn't it actually between *ḱw and *kʷ?
In which case, you're talking about two different stops, one of which could coarticulate phonemically and one of which could not.
Re: Phonemic distinction labialized/rounded environments
Posted: Thu Apr 14, 2011 11:17 am
by sangi39
I was only using word-initial sounds here but I was searching through the PIE-English word list in Mallory and Adams' book on PIE and found this:
1) *kʷ vs. *kw does exist but I could find any word-initial instances of *kʷw within this word list
2) instances of word-initial *ḱ vs. *kj do not exist in this word list but there are instances of both *ḱw and *ḱj
I'm not sure what his means (or if it means anything at all) but I thought I'd post it anyway
Re: Phonemic distinction labialized/rounded environments
Posted: Thu Apr 14, 2011 1:57 pm
by jal
I had to look twice on my tiny laptop screen to see that k-with hook-thingy, it looked like an ordinary k. So what is the hook (or bend) thing? Can't find it in the IPA table.
JAL
Re: Phonemic distinction labialized/rounded environments
Posted: Thu Apr 14, 2011 8:05 pm
by Tropylium⁺
jal wrote:I had to look twice on my tiny laptop screen to see that k-with hook-thingy, it looked like an ordinary k. So what is the hook (or bend) thing? Can't find it in the IPA table.
It's a k with acute, which is PIE transcription for the palatovelar stop (so something like [kʲ] or [c]).
Re: Phonemic distinction labialized/rounded environments
Posted: Fri Apr 15, 2011 1:45 am
by jal
Tropylium⁺ wrote:It's a k with acute, which is PIE transcription for the palatovelar stop (so something like [kʲ] or [c]).
Ah yeah, thanks. IE9 displays it as an acute, but FF3 on Ubuntu made it look like a bend or hook attached to the k.
JAL