Talk:Nuxálk language

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Bagemihl also lists a series of sonorants, m n l, with an under-dot, as phonemes. Are these glottalized, or just syllabic? kwami 08:02, 2005 August 20 (UTC)

I don't have a problem with the concept of syllabic voiceless fricatives, but how do the plosive-only words work? Surely there must at least be voiceless [ə] between them?!? David Marjanović | david.marjanovic_at_gmx.at | 23:28 CEST | 2006/4/25

They're aspirated, and the aspiration separates them. I suppose one could claim that aspiration is the same as a voiceless schwa. kwami 22:00, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

Oh! Yeah! Logical! I forgot the aspiration because, confusingly, it's not written in the example words, despite the use of brackets rather than slashes.

But then… aspiration isn't voiceless. It can only be followed by a voiced vowel. Could it be that there are non-phonemic epenthetic vowels in those words? Or what else could I be overlooking?

BTW, do you happen to know if the aspiration is dropped in words like /ps/ and /sps/ in favor of syllabic [s]?

David Marjanović | david.marjanovic_at_gmx.at | 14:08 CEST | 2006/4/28

Aspiration is voiceless, and need not be followed by a vowel. I find [p^ht^h] perfectly pronounceable on its own. You could regard the aspiration as a very short voiceless schwa with comparatively heavy friction, but it's different from the voiceless vowel of Japanese [suki], which occupies a whole mora. In [ps] I suppose the 'aspirated' [p] is distinguished from [p's] by lacking the ejective release. Both [p^hs] with nuclear aspiration and [ps] with nuclear [s] are possible; I don't know which they use. I think I once read that the word [sts] 'birthmark'(?) is three syllables, in which case the aspiration on the [t] is a nucleus. ~ Anon_i, 13/8/2006

Sorry, I've just remembered it was [stt] that was three syllables, so that's not evidence for the above. ~ Anon_i, 14/8/2006

The whole concept of a syllable becomes difficult and is perhaps not applicable to some languages, especially ones like this. Trying to decide what the nucleus is of some of these words might be meaningless. kwami 18:18, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

I find [pʰtʰ] pretty easy to whisper, but not pronounceable in a normal voice, because the sound that I recognize as [h] can only be released into something voiced because it contains a glottal tap of something. I drop that when I whisper because otherwise I hear [hʔ]. But who knows. Maybe those folks use the glottal fricative/approximant alone, without the flap. Maybe it's just me in the first place. ~:-|

David Marjanović | david.marjanovic_at_gmx.at | 23:17 CEST | 2006/9/7

'Whispering' isn't a bad description. The Nuxalk themselves have commented that some of these words can not be said very loud, certainly not yelled. 'Help' is one of them, though fortunately 'help me' contains sonorants and can be yelled. But [h] can be released into anything. See Icelandic for its "preaspirated" stops. kwami 18:18, 31 October 2007 (UTC)