<html><head><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body style="overflow-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;">Dear Christian,<div><br></div><div>[u] and Japanese [ɯ] both involve labial articulation. I don’t know the specifics of Cabecar [u], but normally an [u] involves some degree of lip rounding. Japanese [ɯ], although not rounded, involves lip compression. Thus they are likelier to be coarticulated with [ɸ], which is a labial consonant. </div><div><br></div><div>You probably know already but Japanese [ɸ~h] was [ɸ] in all positions before, and before that it was [p] in all positions. So it might be better to analyze whether such lenition has occurred in Cabecar as well.</div><div><br></div><div>From Netherlands,</div><div>Ian</div><div><div><br><blockquote type="cite"><div>19/5/2023 오후 9:11, Christian Lehmann <christian.lehmann@uni-erfurt.de> 작성:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><div>
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The above allophony is well known from Japanese. My current problem
is to describe it for Cabecar (Chibchan, Costa Rica). The
conditioning context is almost the same in these languages: What
appears as [ɸ] before [ɯ] (in Japanese) or [u] (in Cabecar) is [h]
otherwise.<br>
<br>
Intuition would suggest that this is an assimilation of what is
basically an /h/ to the features of the following vowel. However, my
phonetics and phonology are insufficient to answer the two obvious
questions:<br>
<ol>
<li>What is the phonetic motivation for this distribution?</li>
<li>Is there a phonological feature shared by [ɸ], on one hand,
and both [u] and [ɯ], on the other, which could figure in a
formulation of the assimilation?</li>
</ol>
Let it be said that my phonology was shaped a couple of years ago by
Chomsky & Halle 1968; so I am prepared to be told that this is
of no concern anymore and the fruitful approach is entirely
different. Nevertheless, the two questions may make sense even
outside this particular framework.<br>
<br>
I would be very grateful for help from you phonologists (or anybody
else).<br>
<div class="moz-signature">-- <br><p style="font-size:90%">Prof. em. Dr. Christian Lehmann<br>
Rudolfstr. 4<br>
99092 Erfurt<br>
<span style="font-variant:small-caps">Deutschland</span></p>
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