"Plain" Velarization?

[Micamo]

Anyone know of any examples of contrastive velarization that doesn't have a corresponding series of palatized consonants?

[Sankon]

According to Peter Ladefoged and Ian Maddieson in The Sounds of the World's Languages, Marshallese has contrastive plain and velarized bilabials and dentals. However, Wikipedia says it contrasts palatalized and velarized bilabials and dentals.

Many languages have contrastive /l/ and /ɫ/, such as Albanian.

[Micamo]

When in doubt I'm inclined to distrust Wikipedia, but I still wonder why the palatized/velarized distinction is such a universal thing.

Also to go a bit off topic in my own thread, the Wikipedia article says Marshallese allows only closed syllables o.o

[Sankon]

Sorry, double post.

[Sankon]

It's just easier to distinguish. It's funny; my grandfather (monolingual Russian speaker) says plain consonants (he was talking about German) are palatalized. It's similar to a lack of dental/alveolar distinction, with many languages actually having a dental/retroflex distinction.

Also, Gilbertese/Kiribati does distinguish plain/velarized bilabials.

[Micamo]

It's just easier to distinguish. It's funny; my grandfather (monolingual Russian speaker) says plain consonants (he was talking about German) are palatalized. It's similar to a lack of dental/alveolar distinction, with many languages actually having a dental/retroflex distinction.

Also, Gilbertese/Kiribati does distinguish plain/velarized bilabials.

Weird, I can distinguish between plain and velarized just as well as between palatized and velarized. Then again I also have no problems doing dental trills and other weird things. I spend too much time practicing phonetics <.<

[Sankon]

There is often a plain/pharyngealized distinction; I myself cannot distinguish pharyngealization and velarization, and cannot distinguish velarization and plain consonants, but I can distinguish plain and pharyngealized consonants.

[Micamo]

Whenever I design a phonology I practice its pronunciation until I can distinguish/pronounce everything. With really weird ones this can take hours, of course by the time I'm done I usually scrap it and begin with the next one.

Oh well.

[Pe King]

Where is a good place to learn about this languistics lingo?

[reizoukin]

Where is a good place to learn about this languistics lingo?

The internet.

I notice that conlangers use wikipedia as a resource a LOT.

In the meantime, you can learn all the sounds of IPA here:
http://web.uvic.ca/ling/resources/ipa/c ... IPAlab.htm

You can type it here:
http://weston.ruter.net/projects/ipa-ch ... /keyboard/

You can learn the lingo of the whole IPA chart here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ipa

And ask specific questions on the board here, too. :P Also, look at the guides, like the conlang construction kit.

[Nortaneous]

Also to go a bit off topic in my own thread, the Wikipedia article says Marshallese allows only closed syllables o.o

That isn't as weird as you'd think, especially for Marshallese. My guess is that it's mostly CV and there's an approximant (which might not be pronounced) at the end of any word that doesn't have any other consonant ending it, so you get the vowel variation that you wouldn't otherwise get.

Actually, that's pretty much it:

Marshallese orthography permits that words can begin and end with vowels, but this merely means the consonant phoneme on the "vowel" end of the word is actually an unwritten approximant:

* [j] if the vowel is a front vowel.
* [ɰ] if the vowel is a back vowel.
* [w] if the vowel is a rounded vowel.

Also, Arrernte, another VC language, drops phrase-initial /@/ (except before rounded consonants, where it's realized as ) and adds phrase-final /@/.