[Lingtyp] allophony of [h] and [ɸ]

[Ian Joo]

Dear Christian,

[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. 

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.

From Netherlands,
Ian

> 19/5/2023 오후 9:11, Christian Lehmann <christian.lehmann at uni-erfurt.de> 작성:
> 
> 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.
> 
> 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:
> What is the phonetic motivation for this distribution?
> 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?
> 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.
> 
> I would be very grateful for help from you phonologists (or anybody else).
> -- 
> Prof. em. Dr. Christian Lehmann
> Rudolfstr. 4
> 99092 Erfurt
> Deutschland
> 
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