This thing I cannot shake

[alice]

I'm still none the wiser about this; bear with me. I've yet to find a source which disagrees with the first three lines of each of these.

IF velars have [+back]
AND palatalisation adds [+front]
AND nothing can have [+back] and [+front]
THEN how do palatalised velars work?

Similarly:

IF uvulars have [+low]
AND palatalisation adds [+high]
AND nothing can have [+low] and [+high]
THEN how do palatalised uvulars work?

[schyrsivochter]

Err… what is this ‘[+back]/[+front/low/high]’ thing?!

[Mâq Lar]

Palatalisation is a secondary articulation; it doesn't just add [+front] to the velar in the same way that changing schwa to could be said to be adding the feature [+front]; it superimposes the [+front] on top of the [+back] velar. It is two co-articulated consonants, one of which has [+back] and one of which [+front].

This might not be expressed in technical terms, but that's how I have always understood it to be. Open to correction from anyone who knows better though.

[Mâq Lar]

Err… what is this ‘[+back]/[+front/low/high]’ thing?!

They are features used to describe sounds. When you say , your tongue is high - has the feature [+high]. For [a], your tongue is low, so it has [-high] (since low is the opposite of high). Sounds can be described by combinations of these features, and they can be grouped into categories by them - e.g. "all the sounds with [+high] - because sounds with certain features in common often behave the same way.

[----]

I think the problem is that you think features are "real". They aren't. They're just a construct that's useful for explaining some linguistic phenomena. These contradictions arise from your idea that there is such a thing as "[+front]" that has an existence independent of a particular language or a particular description of a language, and so it has some set of absolute, objective properties. But you're mistaken about this.

[alice]

Palatalisation is a secondary articulation; it doesn't just add [+front] to the velar in the same way that changing schwa to could be said to be adding the feature [+front]; it superimposes the [+front] on top of the [+back] velar. It is two co-articulated consonants, one of which has [+back] and one of which [+front].

This might not be expressed in technical terms, but that's how I have always understood it to be. Open to correction from anyone who knows better though.

So /kʲ/ is really /k/ and /c/ co-articulated? Does this mean that /pʲ/ is /p/ and /c/ co-articulated, or just /p/ with [front] added?

[alice]

I think the problem is that you think features are "real". They aren't. They're just a construct that's useful for explaining some linguistic phenomena. These contradictions arise from your idea that there is such a thing as "[+front]" that has an existence independent of a particular language or a particular description of a language, and so it has some set of absolute, objective properties. But you're mistaken about this.

That's fair enough, but it strikes me as odd that (what I understand to be) the standard set of features can't account for something as straightforward as palatalisation of velars.

[----]

I don't know what to say except that your understanding of the standard set of features is wrong. There just isn't such a thing. Features only exist to identify and collect natural classes of phonemes, and what members exist in a natural class is very dependent on particular languages, because languages almost never have identical phonological inventories or identical ways of organizing them. If there's not a class of "back" sounds that seem to share some effectual property then there's absolutely no reason to consider a [back] feature and so there's nothing for [front] to conflict with. In any case, I don't see why there's anything worrying about something being [+front] and [+back] at the same time because [-front] doesn't necessarily have to be [+back]. Maybe it's a situation like the one with the terms "open" and "closed" in mathematics. (they're not (always) opposites).

[Mâq Lar]

Palatalisation is a secondary articulation; it doesn't just add [+front] to the velar in the same way that changing schwa to could be said to be adding the feature [+front]; it superimposes the [+front] on top of the [+back] velar. It is two co-articulated consonants, one of which has [+back] and one of which [+front].

This might not be expressed in technical terms, but that's how I have always understood it to be. Open to correction from anyone who knows better though.

So /kʲ/ is really /k/ and /c/ co-articulated? Does this mean that /pʲ/ is /p/ and /c/ co-articulated, or just /p/ with [front] added?

Not /c/; /j/. The Wikipedia page on secondary articulations quotes a Maledo (2011) saying a secondary articulation is a lesser structure imposed upon a primary articulation, and says that all secondary-articulation a have at least one which is in approximant. (Coarticulated /k/ and /c/ would be like one of those doubly articulated /kp/ you get in African languages - contrast that with a labialised /k/ and you can see the difference - it's /k/ and /w/.)

[alice]

Palatalisation is a secondary articulation; it doesn't just add [+front] to the velar in the same way that changing schwa to could be said to be adding the feature [+front]; it superimposes the [+front] on top of the [+back] velar. It is two co-articulated consonants, one of which has [+back] and one of which [+front].

This might not be expressed in technical terms, but that's how I have always understood it to be. Open to correction from anyone who knows better though.

So /kʲ/ is really /k/ and /c/ co-articulated? Does this mean that /pʲ/ is /p/ and /c/ co-articulated, or just /p/ with [front] added?

Not /c/; /j/. The Wikipedia page on secondary articulations quotes a Maledo (2011) saying a secondary articulation is a lesser structure imposed upon a primary articulation, and says that all secondary-articulation a have at least one which is in approximant. (Coarticulated /k/ and /c/ would be like one of those doubly articulated /kp/ you get in African languages - contrast that with a labialised /k/ and you can see the difference - it's /k/ and /w/.)

Am enlightened; this is a good explanation!

[Pole, the]

I'm still none the wiser about this; bear with me. I've yet to find a source which disagrees with the first three lines of each of these.

IF velars have [+back]
AND palatalisation adds [+front]
AND nothing can have [+back] and [+front]
THEN how do palatalised velars work?

Similarly:

IF uvulars have [+low]
AND palatalisation adds [+high]
AND nothing can have [+low] and [+high]
THEN how do palatalised uvulars work?

These are just descriptive labels, you shouldn't overanalyze it.

So /kʲ/ is really /k/ and /c/ co-articulated?

No, that would be most probably transcribed as [k͡c].

[kʲ] is more like [k] + [j]. A full velar closure with a palatal coarticulation.

[Zju]

[kʲ] is simply [+velar +palatalised] or [+dorsal +palatalised] if you will. [+front] and [+back] are vowel features, not consonant ones.
Palatalised uvulars are impossible to pronounce the last time I checked.

[vokzhen]

Palatalised uvulars are impossible to pronounce the last time I checked.

Ubykh and Abkhaz-Abaza have them, and afaik it's on more than just vowel-coloring. I.e. it's not just that /χa/ is [χa] and /χʲa/ is [χe], but /χʲ/ is actually uvular with palatal coarticulation /χʲa/ [χʲe].

[Tropylium]

A key confusion here, with respect to phonemic feature theory, seems to be the idea that velars are [+back]. AFAI have seen, they are usually rather modeled as [+high], which can easily enough combine with [+front].

What this does predict though is that you'll never find a contrast between /c/ and /kʲ/; at best you can reach, as in Yanyuwa, something like coronal /[ȶ] or [tʲ]/ versus dorsal /[kʲ] or [k̟]/.