«о 



In all of these cases I presume that the soft palate itself 

 takes active part in the formation of a lirm closure with its 

 lower edge against the back of the tongue. The outgoing air 

 can therefore suddenly force its way as if with an explosion, 

 which is the reason why this sound from the acoustic point of 

 view is more apt to remind one of the unnasalized stopped 

 sounds {q к etc.) than nasals do as a rule. 



§ 7. I have lingered long at the inmost part of the mouth 

 because the sounds there produced are so very important for the 

 Greenlandic language and for the comprehension of its whole 

 phonetic basis (also for the vowel system). To sum up: there 

 is a nasalized voiced stopped consonant 9^*), an unvoiced 

 stopped consonant q^ a voiced fricative r, and an unvoiced 

 aspirated fricative p. 



This sound-series may serve as a prototype for all the 

 remaining Greenlandic consonants. There is a striking con- 

 formity between these four uvular consonants and all the rest 

 of the consonant-system. In the path of the outgoing air 

 there are still three places where friction or closure takes 

 place : the first is that portion of the palate that corresponds 

 to the back part of the tongue (/'J~'4; the second, the place 

 behind the teeth [ß^~^] which is the field of activity for the 

 point of the tongue (/9); the third is the lips [a). At each of 

 these places, the Greenlander produces sounds both by closure 

 and friction, just as at the inner entrance to the mouth-passage, 

 and these sounds may be modified by the same means which 

 operated there, namely: voice, breath, nasalization. 



We may accordingly draw up the following consonant- 

 system for the Greenlandic language as a whole : 



') 1 consider the nasal sounds U) be the most piimitive speech-sounds, 

 because at their formation the soft palate rests passive, and I therefore 

 place them first in the system. 



