Are there any languages that have both /ts/ & /tɕ/ phonemes?

[Drydic]

I don't see Polish on there, I wonder if it has these sounds

I think everyone missed the low hanging fruit--i.e. almost the entire northwestern caucasian family:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ubykh_phonology
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abkhaz_phonology
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abaza_language

Second-best contribution to the thread so far. This one is first.

Most (all?) Slavic languages besides Russian that have /tɕ/ have /tʃ/ too. I think.

Congratulations on not reading the fucking thread.

[Kereb]

he MIGHT have been kidding, but ... you never know here

is there a term for like "Poe's Law" but with autism?

[clawgrip]

I think Polish makes this distinction.

[Drydic]

he MIGHT have been kidding, but ... you never know here

I considered that for a bit, but the wording doesn't make it seem likely to me.

is there a term for like "Poe's Law" but with autism?

...I'll have to write that name down.

[jal]

is there a term for like "Poe's Law" but with autism?

Kereb's law?


JAL

[jal]

No, in Catalan /tɕ/ doesn't occur only at the end of a word.

Look, if there's devoicing at the end of a word in Catalan, and it's written with a <g> which is normally voiced [dZ] but pronounced [tS] because of the devoicing, THEN IT'S NOT A PHONEME there. Regardless of whether there's *also* a [tS] that's not an allophone of anything but simply /tS/. Please first get your facts (and terminology) straight before discussing this stuff.


JAL

[Drydic]

I'm really thinking someone here is confused as to what <ɕ>, x-sampa S, and <s> stand for, but I can't figure out who it is.

[Izambri]

No, in Catalan /tɕ/ doesn't occur only at the end of a word.

Look, if there's devoicing at the end of a word in Catalan, and it's written with a <g> which is normally voiced [dZ] but pronounced [tS] because of the devoicing, THEN IT'S NOT A PHONEME there. Regardless of whether there's *also* a [tS] that's not an allophone of anything but simply /tS/. Please first get your facts (and terminology) straight before discussing this stuff.

You didn't understand, it seems. I said that in Catalan <ig> at the end of a word always represents the phoneme /t͜ɕ/, which is clearly unvoiced. Voicing can occur in certain syntactic environments, giving the allophone [d͜ʑ].

And don't trust Catalan orthography to elucidate if a sound is voiced or unvoiced. Using <ig> for /t͜ɕ/ at the end of a word is due to etymology, and etymology is not phonology.

Besides that, I repeat what I said in my first post: Catalan has both /ts/ and /tɕ/ as phonemes.

By the way, bear in mind that /tʃ/ is the traditional symbol used in Catalan grammars for that palatala sound, although /tɕ/ is considered closer to the real Catalan sound; see, for example, Recasens, Daniel (1996), Fonètica descriptiva del català: assaig de caracterització de la pronúncia del vocalisme i el consonantisme català al segle XX (2nd ed.), Barcelona: Institut d'Estudis Catalans.

[jal]

I'm really thinking someone here is confused as to what <ɕ>, x-sampa S, and <s> stand for, but I can't figure out who it is.

Perhaps it's Wikipedia:

There is some confusion in the literature about the precise phonetic characteristics of /ʃ/, /ʒ/, /tʃ/, /dʒ/. some sources generally describe them as "postalveolar." Others describe them as "back alveolo-palatal", implying that the characters ⟨ɕ ʑ tɕ dʑ⟩ would be more accurate. However, in all literature on Catalan, only the characters for palato-alveolar affricates and fricatives are used, even when the same sources use ⟨ɕ ʑ⟩ for other languages like Polish and Chinese.

[jal]

You didn't understand, it seems.

Well, I can't claim too much knowledge on Catalan ortography, but if Wikipedia is to be trusted, the affricates have dubious phonemic status, and final [tS] is indeed devoiced [dZ] and therefor not a phonemic /tS/ in that position, as you seemed to claim in your first post.


JAL

[Ser]

I'm really thinking someone here is confused as to what <ɕ>, x-sampa S, and <s> stand for, but I can't figure out who it is.

Perhaps it's Wikipedia:

There is some confusion in the literature about the precise phonetic characteristics of /ʃ/, /ʒ/, /tʃ/, /dʒ/. some sources generally describe them as "postalveolar." Others describe them as "back alveolo-palatal", implying that the characters ⟨ɕ ʑ tɕ dʑ⟩ would be more accurate. However, in all literature on Catalan, only the characters for palato-alveolar affricates and fricatives are used, even when the same sources use ⟨ɕ ʑ⟩ for other languages like Polish and Chinese.

If Izo is not misquoting Daniel Recasens' 1996 book, then it's not true that "all literature on Catalan" uses [tʃ dʒ] instead of [tɕ dʑ].

You didn't understand, it seems.

Well, I can't claim too much knowledge on Catalan ortography, but if Wikipedia is to be trusted, the affricates have dubious phonemic status, and final [tS] is indeed devoiced [dZ] and therefor not a phonemic /tS/ in that position, as you seemed to claim in your first post.

That's not what the Wikipedia article you linked to says. It doubts that /ts/ and /dz/ are distinct since /ts/ appears practically only in compounds and across inflectional morpheme boundaries, but it accepts that /tʃ/ and /dʒ/ are definitely distinct in intervocalic position. It suggests that /tʃ/ and /dʒ/ are distinct in word-final position too, but unfortunately it doesn't say why the /dʒ#/ of raig /radʒ/ 'beam' is unvoiced in isolation, [ratʃ], but voiced before the adjective esbiaixat/a /əzbjəˈʃat/: raig esbiaixat /radʒ əzbiəˈʃat/ [ˈradʒ əzβiəˈʃat].

(Maybe underlying word-final /dʒ/ is [dʒ] when followed by a vowel-initial word in certain close relationships to the preceding word, so, sort of like French liaison, except that obviously not in the same environments since French liaison doesn't happen between a noun and a following adjective.)

I strongly suspect that, on the other hand, the alleged /tʃ#/ of despatx /dəsˈpatʃ/ does not undergo this sort of voicing, so that despaitx esbiaixat would be [dəsˈpatʃ əzβiəˈʃat] and not *[-adʒ əz-].

Bottom line: it could be that Catalan doesn't have a /ts/ vs. /tʃ/ distinction, but that'd be because an underlying affricate /ts/ doesn't exist, all instances of [ts] being just /t/ + /s/ across morpheme boundaries.

[jal]

That's not what the Wikipedia article you linked to says.

It says this:

The phonemic status of affricates is dubious; after other consonants, affricates are in free variation with fricatives, e.g. clenxa [ˈkɫɛɲtʃə] ~ [ˈkɫɛɲʃə] ('hair parting') and may be analyzed as either single phonemes or clusters of a stop and a fricative.

So that seems to suggest free variation between the palletal affricates and fricatives, which would indeed make a phonemic status uncertain.


JAL

[Izambri]

You didn't understand, it seems.

Well, I can't claim too much knowledge on Catalan ortography, but if Wikipedia is to be trusted, the affricates have dubious phonemic status, and final [tS] is indeed devoiced [dZ] and therefor not a phonemic /tS/ in that position, as you seemed to claim in your first post.


JAL

Any <ig> at the end of a word represents /t͜ɕ/ in Catalan. The fact that the digraph is written with a <g> (which usually represents a voiced sound) is not important in this case. As I said, is due to etymology, the Latin origin of the word in question.
Consider another Catalan digraph: <tj>, which represents /d͜ʑ/. In this case it happens the same but reversed; a digraph with a consonant that usually represents a unvoiced sound is used to represent a voiced sound.

And now that we're on it, Catalan <tx> also represents /t͜ɕ/; not only at the end of a word but in any position: Txad, petxina, esquitx, cartutx...

[Izambri]

[...] It suggests that /tʃ/ and /dʒ/ are distinct in word-final position too, but unfortunately it doesn't say why the /dʒ#/ of raig /radʒ/ 'beam' is unvoiced in isolation, [ratʃ], but voiced before the adjective esbiaixat/a /əzbjəˈʃat/: raig esbiaixat /radʒ əzbiəˈʃat/ [ˈradʒ əzβiəˈʃat].

raig [rat͜ɕ] vs. raig esbiaixat [rad͜ʑ əzbiə'ɕat], because when in syntactic contact /t͜ɕ/ is followed by a vowel it becomes voiced.

I strongly suspect that, on the other hand, the alleged /tʃ#/ of despatx /dəsˈpatʃ/ does not undergo this sort of voicing, so that despaitx esbiaixat would be [dəsˈpatʃ əzβiəˈʃat] and not *[-adʒ əz-].

No, in that case occurs the same as above: despatx [dəs'pat͜ɕ] vs. despatx annex [dəs'pad͜ʑ ən:ɛks].

It happens the same with /ts/ and /ks/: fets [fet͜s] vs. fets estranys /fed͜z əs'tɾaɲɕ/; flux /fluks/ vs. flux aïllant /flugz əi'ʎan/

[Ser]

Izo: I see... I still think it all comes down on whether an underlying affricate phoneme /ts/ exists or not, and whether you think the affricate that's pronounced more towards the back is best represented as [tɕ]. If both things exist in your analysis, then yes, Catalan has /ts/ vs. /tɕ/.

That's not what the Wikipedia article you linked to says.

It says this:

The phonemic status of affricates is dubious; after other consonants, affricates are in free variation with fricatives, e.g. clenxa [ˈkɫɛɲtʃə] ~ [ˈkɫɛɲʃə] ('hair parting') and may be analyzed as either single phonemes or clusters of a stop and a fricative.

So that seems to suggest free variation between the palletal affricates and fricatives, which would indeed make a phonemic status uncertain.

Your eyes are glancing over "after other consonants". There's no suggestion that they're in free variation elsewhere. Izo: can fletxa be pronounced [ˈfleɕa], for example?

[Izambri]

Izo: can fletxa be pronounced [ˈfleɕa], for example?

Fletxa ['flet͜ɕə]. Always with /t͜ɕ/.

[jal]

Your eyes are glancing over "after other consonants". There's no suggestion that they're in free variation elsewhere.

Well, the Wikipedia article can be badly written (it wouldn't be the first), but although there may be no suggestion that they are in free variation if not after consonants, it does say "the phonemic status of affricates is dubious". So either that statement is false, or the articles lacks examples of other cases.


JAL

[jal]

Fletxa ['flet͜ɕə]. Always with /t͜ɕ/.

Just to be sure: you are assessing all this as a native speaker of Catalan, right? Besides your native language instinct, do you have any formal training in Catalan phonology? I'm asking because native speakers are typically not to be trusted when it comes to a description of their language, as they are often immune to variations and bad judges of their own speech.


JAL

[Drydic]

Fletxa ['flet͜ɕə]. Always with /t͜ɕ/.

Just to be sure: you are assessing all this as a native speaker of Catalan, right? Besides your native language instinct, do you have any formal training in Catalan phonology? I'm asking because native speakers are typically not to be trusted when it comes to a description of their language, as they are often immune to variations and bad judges of their own speech.


JAL

I think Izo's learned enough to be able to tell the difference in this case actually.

[jal]

I think Izo's learned enough to be able to tell the difference in this case actually.

Possibly, but I'll let him confirm that :).


JAL

[Izambri]

Fletxa ['flet͜ɕə]. Always with /t͜ɕ/.

Just to be sure: you are assessing all this as a native speaker of Catalan, right? Besides your native language instinct, do you have any formal training in Catalan phonology? I'm asking because native speakers are typically not to be trusted when it comes to a description of their language, as they are often immune to variations and bad judges of their own speech.


JAL

What I'm saying in this thread is the same you can find in Catalan grammars, I'm not inventing anything nor basing it in my own idiolect. And yes, I have a formal teaching/training in Catalan phonology: it began at school and was quite thorough, to be honest (I had a good grasp of the subject before highschool) and after that I continued my own training on the matter, basically to improve my conlangs, specially Hellesan, whose phonology is heavily based on those of Catalan and Occitan.

[Drydic]

Fletxa ['flet͜ɕə]. Always with /t͜ɕ/.

Just to be sure: you are assessing all this as a native speaker of Catalan, right? Besides your native language instinct, do you have any formal training in Catalan phonology? I'm asking because native speakers are typically not to be trusted when it comes to a description of their language, as they are often immune to variations and bad judges of their own speech.


JAL

What I'm saying in this thread is the same you can find in Catalan grammars, I'm not inventing anything nor basing it in my own idiolect. And yes, I have a formal teaching/training in Catalan phonology: it began at school and was quite thorough, to be honest (I had a good grasp of the subject before highschool) and after that I continued my own training on the matter, basically to improve my conlangs, specially Hellesan, whose phonology is heavily based on those of Catalan and Occitan.

What Jal's saying is native speaker intuition and what the language's conventions hold to be ironclad fact not infrequently, upon close examination, turns out to not actually be the case. He's got a very good point, I just don't think it applies to you.

[Izambri]

What Jal's saying is native speaker intuition and what the language's conventions hold to be ironclad fact not infrequently, upon close examination, turns out to not actually be the case. He's got a very good point, I just don't think it applies to you.

Yeah, I caught it.

[Drydic]

What Jal's saying is native speaker intuition and what the language's conventions hold to be ironclad fact not infrequently, upon close examination, turns out to not actually be the case. He's got a very good point, I just don't think it applies to you.

Yeah, I caught it.

yay

[2+3 clusivity]

I'm gonna go back to the OP:

As the title says, are there any languages that have both /ts/ and /tɕ/ as distinct phonemes (or anything similar to this)? I'm thinking because both are not phonetically very different most of these would tend to merge relatively quickly. I know Japanese and Korean has both [ts] and [tɕ] but they are allophones which is not what I'm looking for.

Also if you know of any such languages, I would like to know what was the historical phonology behind the development of both phonemes.
Thanks in advance!

. . . and call it mystery solved/question answered.