[YG Conlang Archives] > [engelang group] > messages [Date Index] [Thread Index] >
John Cowan, On 17/09/2012 17:21:
I don't have a problem in Lojban either, because I realize /x/ as [X], so [iXi] is a long way from /ihi/ realized as [iCi].
That would work, tho [iXi] is not easy to say. So would giving one (and only one) of them a voiced allophone.
The bigger issue is /uhu/, which comes out [uxu], dangerously close to [uXu].
Yes.
Looking at WALS also suggests that fricatives (other than [h]) appear less often in the world's languagesr as one moves toward the back of the mouth, and back voiced fricatives occur in far fewer languages than front ones. This suggests that [G] be avoided.
I think the proper comparison would be between languages that have [G] as a primary allophone of a system of contrastive voiced fricatives (i.e. alongside /k, g, x/) and languages that have contrastive voiced fricatives but a gap where /G/ should be. My sense is that given the Lojban phoneme inventory (and ignoring the status of /'/), filling the gap at /G/ does not result in a more complex or more difficult system.
I continue to believe that five vowels plus an epenthetic is the correct number. There is a substantial drop-off in the number of languages with more than six quality contrasts.
I cannot deny that, but natlangs don't have to labour under the requirement of being loglangs no less concise than your average natlang. For your ordinary auxlang, I'd say sure, go for five or even three vowels. But for a loglang with aspirations of being an auxlang, you've got a trade-off between the extra phonetic difficulty or unfamiliarity /y/ would bring and the extra concision it would bring. --And.