Phonology of numbers: Symmetry violations

[Ulrike Zeshan]

What a nice message, with such interesting observations! I will look
forward to the next one. BTW, how did you come across the information about
Mali?
Cheers,

Ulrike


At 06:35 PM 16/05/02 -0500, you wrote:
>The discussion set off by Adam's questions has raised some interesting
>points about numerals and (classes of) signs with exceptional
>phonological properties. Adam's two original points were:
>
>1. "Symmetry violations":
>Certain two-handed number systems can incorporate movements which,
>combined with different handshapes on each hand, appear to violate
>Battison's Symmetry condition.
>2. "Exceptional handshapes":
>Numeral systems seem to show other kinds of exceptional properties, for
>example handshapes not found elsewhere in the language.
>
>SInce I have a fair bit to say, I'll talk about the Symmetry violations
>in this message and deal with exceptional handshapes and related
>questions in a second message.
>

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Dr. Ulrike Zeshan
Research Centre for Linguistic Typology
Institute for Advanced Study
La Trobe University
Victoria 3086, Australia
ph. +61-3-94673084
fax +61-3-94673053
u.zeshan at latrobe.edu.au
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