PHONEMES ditions
IN
THE SPOKEN CHAIN
—and with the same reservations—
it is
join implosive
and explosive phonemes: im,
haima, English
active, etc.).
55
always possible to etc. (e.g. Greek
Jet,
Of course the successive articulatory moments do not follow each other so naturally as they do in the reverse order of combination 1. The difference between initial implosions and explosions is this: explosion, which tends to neutralize the vocal organs, does not engage the following moment; but implosion sets up a definite position that cannot be the point of departure for just any explosion. For that reason one must always resort to some facilitating movement to put the organs necessary for articulating the second phoneme into the right position. While executing s in sp, for instance, the hps must close to prepare for opening p. But experience shows that the facilitating movement has no appreciable effect. It produces only a furtive sound that in no way interferes with the succession of the chain. 3) Implosive
duced, but
if
Link (ÂŤ)
Two consecutive explosions can be pro-
.
the second belongs to a
phoneme
of less or of equal
aperture, the impression of acoustical unity that results in the
opposite case or in the sequences of combinations
1
and 2
will
be
missing: pk can be pronounced (pka), but these sounds do not form
a chain, for the
P
and
K
species
have the same aperture. This
rather unnatural pronunciation would result from stopping after
the
first
On
a of cha-pka.''
the contrary, pr gives the impression of
(cf French rien Because at the very instant the first explosion occurs, the vocal organs have already assumed the right position for executing the second explosion without interfering with the
continuity (cf price) .
'nothing').
;
nor does fy cause difficulty
.
Why?
thus the organs are already in position being pronounced. But it is impossible to pronounce the reverse series rp, not because this is mechanically impossible (we can prepare for p while articulating opening f), but acoustical effect of the
for the r of price while
first;
p
is
because the movement of the ture of p,
f, coming against the smaller aperwould be imperceptible. Two separate movements would
^ To be sure combinations of explosive phonemes having the same aperture are very common in some languages (e.g. initial kt in Greek; cf. ktelno); although these combinations are easy to pronounce, they lack acoustical unity.
(See the following note.)