LINGUIST List 10.1199

Thu Aug 12 1999

Qs: Tone, Plosives & Affricates, Indonesian List

Editor for this issue: Karen Milligan <>



  1. Leonard Herzenberg, Tone
  2. Jorge Guitart, Queries about IPA's palatal plosives and affricates
  3. Uri Tadmor, Indonesian list

Message 1: Tone

Date: Mon, 9 Aug 1999 07:00:44 -0700 (PDT)
From: Leonard Herzenberg <>
Subject: Tone

I have heard of an argument that the Yabema language case of Consonants
is influenced by Tones. This contradicts Hyman's idea about the
possibility only of Tones being influenced by consonants. Does anyone
know who wrote this theory and where it is written?

 Thank you so very much for attention,

 ever truly yours,

Message 2: Queries about IPA's palatal plosives and affricates

Date: Thu, 12 Aug 1999 01:06:30 -0400 (EDT)
From: Jorge Guitart <>
Subject: Queries about IPA's palatal plosives and affricates

The Handbook of the International Phonetic Association: A Guide to the Use
of the International Phonetic Alphabet (Cambridge Univ
Press, 1999--no authors listed) illustrates the consonants and vowels of
29 languages. Of these only four, Czech, Galician, Turkish, and Irish are
described as having palatal plosives. Hungarian is described as having
them only in formal speech, and Hungarian is the only language of those
illustrated that has palatal affricates. In all other languages that have
affricates these are either dental or alveolar or post alveolar or palato
alveolar. I have several questions:

1. Is it accurate to say that in generative terms coronal affricates 
are common and dorsal affricates are rare in the sample provided by the
IPA Handbook?
2. Is the IPA Handbook sample representative of what occurs in languages
in general?
3. If the answer to both 1 and 2 is yes, why would coronal affricates
be common and both dorsal stops and dorsal affricates rare?
4. Given that no variety of Spanish is included in the sample, does
anybody know whether IPA considers that Castilian has palatal plosives or
that it has palatal affricates?

Thank you.

Jorge Guitart
SUNY Buffalo

Message 3: Indonesian list

Date: Thu, 12 Aug 1999 12:53:15 +0700
From: Uri Tadmor <>
Subject: Indonesian list

Two months ago, we attempted to put together a list of linguists working
on languages of Indonesia. However, following our initial announcment
our university was closed down for three weeks during the Inodnesian
election campaign. Unfortunately, our server was also down for that
period, so that the replies bounced. Now that things have quieted down
a bit, we are making a second attempt. If you are interested in being
included in the list, please complete and send the following

First language:
Mailing address:
Contact number:
Email address:
Interests (geographical/specific languages):
Interests (theoretical):
Title of MA thesis and/or PhD dissertation
Year obtained:

If possible, please attach a recent CV and list of pulbication.

Send to: <>

Yours sincerely,
Bambang Kaswanti Purwo
Universitas Atma Jaya
Jakarta Indonesia (Bambang Kaswanti)