Anthony Traill and the holistic approach to Kalahari Basin sound design

Anthony Traill (notably 1985) is widely known for having produced the first comprehensive phonetic and phonological analysis of the so-far most complex sound system in the Kalahari Basin and possibly among the world's languages, viz. of the Taa language complex, specifically its East !Xoon variety. In a number of articles (e.g., 1980, 1992, 1995, 2001) he also laid the foundation for the phonological comparison of the diverse languages of this area. This fruitful combination of language-specific facts with cross-linguistic and universal patterns in particular characterizes his important contribution to African linguistics as well as to general phonetic-phonological theory. Since he achieved this groundwork, the knowledge on individual Kalahari Basin languages has grown tremendously. In this paper, we will explore several theoretical issues addressed for the first time by him and show how his academic oeuvre is still up-to-date in view of these modern data.