At 10:24 pm -0600 2/2/00, Ed Heil wrote:
>Nik Taylor wrote:
[...]
>
>I would be the last to tell you what you should or shouldn't call a
>fricative, but I will tell you that the IPA, who are considered to
>have some small experience in phonetics, call it a glottal fricative.

As, indeed, I pointed out when I was told it was not a glottal fricative.

>As I remember, J.C. Catford, in his _Phonetics: An Introductory
>Guide,_ concurs.
>
>So apparently there is enough turbulence for *some* people to
>consider it a fricative, whether or not there is enough for *you* to.

There is indeed.  The turbulence is, I admit, more noticeable in some
English dialects than other - but there's enough for me.
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At 11:19 pm -0600 2/2/00, Ed Heil wrote:
[....]
>Let's see how this went...
>
>1.  Dirk said that one should call [h] an approximant rather than a
>fricative because there was no turbulence produced *IN THE ORAL
>CAVITY*.  Note that Dirk never denied that the turbulence involved in
>[h] was insufficient to qualify it as a fricative, only that the fact
>that it was not produced by buccal constriction should disqualify it.
>
>2.  I replied that that was perverse, since if one objects to
>non-buccal fricatives, one ought also to object to non-buccal
>approximants, and if one allows the one one ought to allow the other.

Yes, indeed.

In fact it's the first I've heard that a fricative is defined as a sound
where turbulence must be produced in the oral cavity.  If that is so, then
the term 'glottal fricative' (and, ideed, pharyngeal fricative) becomes
meaningless.  I, like Ed it seems, adhere to an older definition that it is
a sound produced by the imperfect closure somewhere in the vocal tract so
that friction is produced; therefore, a sound produced by turbulence caused
by partial closure of the glottis is, be definition, a glottal fricative.
That, as I understand it, is the usage of the IPA.

[snip]
>
>6.  I present above a quote from some people who are utterly
>unconcerned with function and very concerned with articulation and
>phonetics (as they are discussing their technique of
>"electroglottography"), who accept the designation of [h] as "the
>glottal fricative" and specifically refer to its being called such
>because of the presence of turbulence.
>
>So I conclude that at least some people who have no reason to care a
>whit for functional groupings cheerfully call [h] the "glottal
>fricative," and explain that they do so on phonetic and articulatory
>grounds.
>
>So again, you may not want to call it that, but some people do, and
>they do so for phonetic and articulatory reasons.

Absolutely!

It is for _phonetic_ & _articulatory_ reasons I call it an glottal fricative.

It may _function_ differently in different languages, e.g. as a consonant
in the Germanic languages, as a prosody in ancient Greek - but phonetically
I see no reason to depart from IPA usage.

Ray.

=========================================
A mind which thinks at its own expense
will always interfere with language.
                   [J.G. Hamann 1760]
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