Summary Details
| Query: |
Clicks
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| Author: | Nick Reid | |
| Submitter Email: | click here to access email | |
| Linguistic LingField(s): |
Phonetics
Phonology Syntax |
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| Summary: |
Recently I posted a query about clicks in Sesotho and Setswana, and gratefully received responses from these people; Katherine Demuth Julian Lloyd Daan Wissing Larry Horn Shamila Naidoo Justus Roux Tore Janson It turns out I was wrong about Setswana - it doesn't have clicks at all. The sound I was hearing is an alveolar closure released laterally with glottalic (or ejective ) airstream. Sesotho has a click at only a single place of articulation. This is generally described as palato-alveolar, but Tore Janson suggests that "in languages without any contrast in place of articulation there tends to be considerable individual and/or social variation in the actual pronunciation." This Sesotho click has plain, aspirated, and nasal manners of articulation, the first two written as q and qh respectively. The nasal ?? no-one mentioned its orthographic representation. Both these languages have been studied in some detail. Katherine provided these two references for general grammars; Cole, D. T. 1955. An introduction to Tswana grammar. Cape Town: Longman. Doke, C. M. & Mofokeng, S. M. 1957. Textbook of Southern Sotho grammar. Cape Town: Longman. and Shamila provided these two (undated) references that are specifically phonetic. An Introduction to Sesotho Phonetics LJ Kock & RH Moeketsi Marius Lubbe Publishers An Introduction to Tswana Phonetics JW Snyman Marius Lubbe Publishers Larry Horn included information about Xhosa; "In the southern Bantu language of Xhosa, Q, X, and C are used for domal/retroflex, lateral, and alveolar/dental clicks respectively. The orthographic TL you mention for Setswana sounds like the Xhosa X click, and the Q like the Xhosa C. Very confusing. As for the QH, at least in Xhosa clicks can be (post)aspirated, and that's what the H indicates. (There are also prenasalized and "voiced" clicks--the latter I'm told by phoneticians is an articulatory misnomer, but phonologically such clicks, indicated by an orthographic G before the position indicator (as prenasalized clicks are marked by orthographic N), fall together with "real" voiced consonants in their affect on the tone of a following vowel." My thanks to all who replied. This list is really a fabulous tool for finding prompt, friendly, and expert advice, isn't it. cheers Nick Reid Dr Nicholas Reid School of Languages, Cultures and Linguistics University of New England Armidale 2351, AUSTRALIA ph: +61 [0]2 6773 3400 fax: +61 [0]2 6773 3735 email: nreid@metz.une.edu.au website: http://www.une.edu.au/~arts/Linguist/linguist.htm *********************************************** |
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| LL Issue: | 10.1217 | |
| Date Posted: | 20-Aug-1999 | |
| Original Query: | Read original query | |
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