Dolgopolsky's new book

[Larry Trask]

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Miguel C V writes:
 
[LT]
 
> >There are five contrasting nasals and no fewer than eight
> >contrasting coronal laterals, which strikes me as rather a lot of
> >coronal laterals.
 
> Is that *without* counting the lateral affricates/fricatives?
 
No, with: three lateral affricates, two lateral fricatives, and three
lateral resonants.  I intend to check UPSID to see if any language is
cited there with eight contrasting laterals.  I know North American
languages are fond of laterals, but I can't recall seeing one with
eight of the things.
 
Browsing in Ladefoged and Maddieson, I find that the Chadic language
Bura has five contrasting coronal laterals, that Zulu has six but with
two of them lateral clicks, that the Caucasian language Archi has
seven phonetic laterals, but six of them pre-velar rather than coronal
and probably not all phonemes, that Tlingit has five coronal laterals,
none of them an ordinary voiced approximant, and that Navajo has five
coronal laterals.  So, if we exclude clicks, it appears at the moment
that five laterals is the maximum known.
 
Larry Trask
COGS
University of Sussex
Brighton BN1 9QH
UK
 
larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk