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Discussion Groups / English Usage / January 2007Is [&] an allophone of /A/
... in rhotic English? I can't think of a minimal pair that would indicate otherwise. > ... in rhotic English? I can't think of a minimal pair that would > indicate otherwise. "Hat" and "hot". Oh, you mean rhotic English that distinguishes between /A/ and /A./. How about "spaz" (slang) and "spas"? For you Mary-is-not-marry-is-not-merry folks, "Barry" and the heraldic "barry". I'm having trouble confirming the pronunciation of the latter word, though. In southern England and regions with related dialects, "massed" and "mast". I admit I can't find examples easily.  SignatureJerry Friedman > > ... in rhotic English? I can't think of a minimal pair that would > > indicate otherwise. ... > How about "spaz" (slang) and "spas"? ... > In southern England and regions with related dialects, "massed" and "mast". ... I mean, southern England and other regions that have /A/ in "half", "path", "dance", "master and commander", etc. By the way, massed/mast is the only minimal pair I know for that regional split (unlike spaz/spas, which I think works everywhere). Are there others? SignatureJerry Friedman > > ... in rhotic English? I can't think of a minimal pair that would > > indicate otherwise. > > "Hat" and "hot". > > Oh, you mean rhotic English that distinguishes between /A/ and /A./. Yes. > How about "spaz" (slang) and "spas"? For you > Mary-is-not-marry-is-not-merry folks, "Barry" and the heraldic "barry". > I'm having trouble confirming the pronunciation of the latter word, > though. In southern England and regions with related dialects, > "massed" and "mast". Both have [a:] for me, so I can't dig up even a difference like that. > I admit I can't find examples easily. Thanks for trying; the one example was gratifying insofar as it came from English English. > > > ... in rhotic English? I can't think of a minimal pair that would > > > indicate otherwise. ... > > How about "spaz" (slang) and "spas"? For you > > Mary-is-not-marry-is-not-merry folks, "Barry" and the heraldic "barry". [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] > > Both have [a:] for me, so I can't dig up even a difference like that. Interesting. I think I checked it in the NSOED, so I wonder whether your pronunciation is unusual. Anyway, for RP vowels, how about "cant" and "can't", or "ant" and "aunt", or "cam" and "calm" ("Pam" and "palm", "Sam" and "psalm", onomatopoetic "bam" and "balm")? I don't know what rhotic dialects use those same vowels, though. None of those examples work for me, though I'm trying to change my pronunciation of the "calm" words. > > I admit I can't find examples easily. > > Thanks for trying; the one example was gratifying insofar as it came > from English English. Is "spaz" not English English? (Of course, if it's not, that's not surprising--you lot don't pick up /all/ of our slang.) SignatureJerry Friedman > > > > ... in rhotic English? I can't think of a minimal pair that would > > > > indicate otherwise. [quoted text clipped - 10 lines] > Interesting. I think I checked it in the NSOED, so I wonder whether > your pronunciation is unusual. Perhaps; I learnt mass and massive as [mAs] and [m&siv]. I use [&] for both now but I was alluding to my former pronunciation and (apparently mistakenly) thought it came from the British pronunciation. > Anyway, for RP vowels, how about "cant" and "can't", or "ant" and > "aunt" Yes, if there were only one /n/ but I perceive more than one, so I parse them as /&n_t_/ and /An.t./; Ruud once had a sound clip of my gingival* vs. retroflex and showing how putty would sound with my normal retroflex replaced by a gingival plosive. My retroflex doesn't seem to sound retroflex to Brits or Yanks though, perhaps because it has nearly the same point of articulation as theirs and only a different tongue shape whereas low registers use a "cacuminal" point of articulation. * on gums rather than on alveolar ridge with no trace of a contact with either teeth or alveolar ridge, presuming that the ridge is the line separating the gums from the palate Be that as it may, until I discovered phonetics, I parsed Brits' pronunciation of the two differently* too; the cluster in "aunt" has glottal reinforcement* whereas the one in "ant" doesn't and also seems to be articulated either slightly further forward* or at a different angle of contact* or both even if the difference in contact angle is lower than mine. * after [a:], [O:], [@U], [u:] in a closing context like in count, not in a medial context like counter; in high register Indian pronunciation, it has what seems like "the British closing context pronunciation" in medial contexts too, so "counter" has the same cluster as "count". >, or "cam" and "calm" ("Pam" and "palm", "Sam" and "psalm", > onomatopoetic "bam" and "balm")? I don't know what rhotic dialects use > those same vowels, though. High register Malayali English can be both rhotic and close to RP in pronunciation (but very far from RP in intonation) because r is rendered as a retroflex approximant in low registers and having a trace of the low register avoids seeming disdainful. The primary difference between the regional accents of vanishingly small number of people who speak in something like RP in each region seems to be that they tread the fine line between sounding pretentious to speakers of their local low register and sounding too Indian to Anglos. > None of those examples work for me, though > I'm trying to change my pronunciation of the "calm" words. I have a trace of some kind of approximant in calm, perhaps a velar one. > > Thanks for trying; the one example was gratifying insofar as it came > > from English English. > > Is "spaz" not English English? (Of course, if it's not, that's not > surprising Is a spaz someone like the comedian Mr. Bean? > --you lot don't pick up /all/ of our slang.) ... possibly more than you did, unless you called mouths gobs and toilets bogs:-) ... > > Is "spaz" not English English? (Of course, if it's not, that's not > > surprising > > Is a spaz someone like the comedian Mr. Bean? Judging from the Wikipedia article on that character, I don't think so. I like Wikipedia's definition of American "spaz": "Americans usually associate the term with clumsiness often stemming from overexcitement, excessive energy, or hyperactivity." The article <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spastic> has some British terms of relevance to a.u.e., such as "spa" (does that form another &/A minimal pair with the therapeutic spa?) and "spack attack". > > --you lot don't pick up /all/ of our slang.) > > ... possibly more than you did, unless you called mouths gobs and > toilets bogs:-) I have hopes for the renaming of sewage-treatment "wetlands". SignatureJerry Friedman > Anyway, for RP vowels, how about "ant" and "aunt" Thinking it over; this fairly well establishes that in general, [&] and [A] are separate phonemes in Anglos' English. Now, if there's another English where [&] and [A] are allophones of but there are separate phonemes /n./ and /n./, would you find it better to see that English transcribed subphonemically rather than phonemically? For example: Phonemic: /Ant/, /An.t./ Subphonemic: &nt, An.t. Pronunciation [&nt], [a:n.t.] Spelling: <Ant>, <Aunt> (I don't know whether to use // or [] for a subphonemic transcription) > Thinking it over; this fairly well establishes that in general, [&] and > [A] are separate phonemes in Anglos' English. > > Now, if there's another English where [&] and [A] are allophones of but > there are separate phonemes /n./ and /n./, would you find it better to Who or what is /n./ ? > > Thinking it over; this fairly well establishes that in general, [&] and > > [A] are separate phonemes in Anglos' English. [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] > > Who or what is /n./ ? Oops; it seems that I wrote both as /n./. That was a typo; they are /n/ and /n./ - prealveolar and postalveolar nasals, respectively, with /An/ being realized as [&n] and /An./ being realized as [An.]. > > > Thinking it over; this fairly well establishes that in general, [&] and > > > [A] are separate phonemes in Anglos' English. [quoted text clipped - 7 lines] > and /n./ - prealveolar and postalveolar nasals, respectively, with /An/ > being realized as [&n] and /An./ being realized as [An.]. Post-alveolar? Isn't that particular to Indian English? No need to tie it to the a-A thing anyway: That's a dead horse. Everybody knows they are separate phonemes, and everybody knows that some people use different phonemes in some words. No news there. > > Oops; it seems that I wrote both as /n./. That was a typo; they are /n/ > > and /n./ - prealveolar and postalveolar nasals, respectively, with /An/ > > being realized as [&n] and /An./ being realized as [An.]. > > Post-alveolar? Isn't that particular to Indian English? ... which can be transcribed phonemically, can't it? > No need to tie it to the a-A thing anyway: That's a dead horse. Well, there was a recent discussion on why it makes sense to analyze Englishes differently British go by length and Merkans go by quality. Then, wouldn't Indian Englishes too be best transcribed with whatever they go by? > Everybody knows they are separate phonemes, I don't know that they are separate in Malayali English; I can't think of a minimal pair. Jerry Friedman was kind enough to point out a minimal pair in UK English but it wasn't a minimal pair in this dialect where [&] and [A] seem to be in complimentary distribution. it's A in these contexts: At[ Ad[ Ar and & in these: &k &g &c^ &t &d &p &b &N &n^ &n &m &l &ss for [A] to appear before these and j^, an intervening /r/ is required which would be Ar, not A<consonant>. For & to appear before j^ requires an intervening d like in "judge"; it's [j^ad.j^], not [j^aj^] like in articulations you might hear. I suspect that I got mass wrong because of the complimentary distribution [mAs] vs. [m&ssiv] - [A] before short s and [&] before geminate/long s. > and everybody knows that > some people use different phonemes in some words. No news there. We just had news from PTD - that Brits and Merkans go by different criteria. > > > Oops; it seems that I wrote both as /n./. That was a typo; they are /n/ > > > and /n./ - prealveolar and postalveolar nasals, respectively, with /An/ [quoted text clipped - 24 lines] > an intervening d like in "judge"; it's [j^ad.j^], not [j^aj^] like in > articulations you might hear. Since there ain't no dialect of English that has the Malayali wealth of points of articulation (a world record), it makes no sense to transfer the contrast from the vowels to the nasals. The vowels contrast in other environments than before n. > I suspect that I got mass wrong because of the complimentary > distribution [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] > We just had news from PTD - that Brits and Merkans go by different > criteria. Just?? I've been pointing that out here for years. > > > > Oops; it seems that I wrote both as /n./. That was a typo; they are /n/ > > > > and /n./ - prealveolar and postalveolar nasals, respectively, with /An/ [quoted text clipped - 27 lines] > Since there ain't no dialect of English that has the Malayali wealth of > points of articulation (a world record), Malayalam has gingival and retroflex but nothing inbetween, alveolar being of particular interest. Malayali English has one extra point of articulation - post gingival, that in my highest Indian English register, allophonically covers alveolar from both directions - touching alveolar ridge with the bottom of the tongue initially and intervocalically and touching it with the top terminally, so I can even call the back allophone alveolar. > it makes no sense to transfer > the contrast from the vowels to the nasals. If transcribed subphonemically, you wouldn't notice a transfer of contrast which is why I was asking whether a subphonemic transcription better covers more dialects since what is subphonemic in one dialect might be phonemic in another. > The vowels contrast in other environments than before n. The only one I've seen so far is "mast" vs. "massed". > > We just had news from PTD - that Brits and Merkans go by different > > criteria. > Just?? I've been pointing that out here for years. I hadn't noticed that such differences show up in transcription too, that unified transcription standards had therefore been developed and that it might therefore be feasible to unify transcription of even more dialects. This unified transcription is of interest: http://www.antimoon.com/how/pronunc-trans.htm One transcription for both British and American English. This is done by using mostly British phoneme symbols plus the (r) symbol. In this system, transcriptions are shorter, but the reader must know that, in American English, o changes to a: and (r) changes to r. This system is used e.g. in the Collins COBUILD Advanced Learner's English Dictionary ... ... > > No need to tie it to the a-A thing anyway: That's a dead horse. > [quoted text clipped - 9 lines] > minimal pair in UK English but it wasn't a minimal pair in this dialect > where [&] and [A] seem to be in complimentary distribution. > it's A in these contexts: At[ Ad[ Ar > and & in these: &k &g &c^ &t &d &p &b &N &n^ &n &m &l &ss How about before /r/ followed by a vowel? Does "carry" rhyme with "starry" in Malayali English? (That's if you don't like my suggested minimal pair of "Barry" and "barry"--I admit that I might have the wrong pronunciation for the latter word.) > for [A] to appear before these and j^, an intervening /r/ is required > which would be Ar, not A<consonant>. For & to appear before j^ requires > an intervening d like in "judge"; it's [j^ad.j^], not [j^aj^] like in > articulations you might hear. ... Or say. I don't have a "dge" that's separate from "j"--in fact I'd transcribe both as /dZ/. (Same for "ch" and "tch", both /tS/.) But you don't have to believe my transcriptions. I don't know phonetics, and most of what you've said about Malayali English is beyond me. SignatureJerry Friedman ... > > I don't know that they are separate in Malayali English; I can't think > > of a minimal pair. Jerry Friedman was kind enough to point out a [quoted text clipped - 6 lines] > How about before /r/ followed by a vowel? Does "carry" rhyme with > "starry" in Malayali English? ... And while I'm at it, does "sand" or for that matter "manned" rhyme with "command"? Does "stance" rhyme with "dance"? Does "staff", or "naff" if it exists in MalE, rhyme with "half"? I don't really know Southern English English and I'm 1500 miles from my NSOED--I'm just going by the American Heritage Dictionary, which shows /A/ as an alternative for some words (used in eastern New England) but not others. SignatureJerry Friedman > ... > [quoted text clipped - 16 lines] > American Heritage Dictionary, which shows /A/ as an alternative for > some words (used in eastern New England) but not others. One last one: Does "a.s" rhyme with "pass" and "class"? This got much easier when you said your complementary distributions refer to the following consonant; then you don't need minimal pairs (subject to correction from the many here who know more than I do). SignatureJerry Friedman > > And while I'm at it, does "sand" or for that matter "manned" rhyme with > > "command"? Does "stance" rhyme with "dance"? Does "staff", or "naff" [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > > One last one: Does "a.s" rhyme with "pass" and "class"? We had a.s only in the KJV Bible but I never heard the passage read; otherwise, there were only arse and donkey. > This got much easier when you said your complementary distributions > refer to the following consonant; then you don't need minimal pairs > (subject to correction from the many here who know more than I do). Thanks for the effort. ... > We had a.s only in the KJV Bible but I never heard the passage read; > otherwise, there were only arse and donkey. [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > > Thanks for the effort. Ranjit, I think the problem is that you seem to be the only one in this group with any knowledge of Malayali and Malayali English, with the possible exception of Neeraj Mathur. Most of the time we can't follow you; as a sounding-board we are totally useless. > ... > [quoted text clipped - 8 lines] > > How about before /r/ followed by a vowel? Does "carry" rhyme with > > "starry" in Malayali English? To add to what I said before, /R/ is needed only in loan words and names: 1/2 kg of kuRalappam please Mr KiRakkekara. > And while I'm at it, does "sand" or for that matter "manned" rhyme with > "command"? All [&] > Does "stance" rhyme with "dance"? Hmm, ns seems to always take [A] > Does "staff", or "naff" > if it exists in MalE, rhyme with "half"? All [A] > I don't really know Southern > English English and I'm 1500 miles from my NSOED--I'm just going by the > American Heritage Dictionary, which shows /A/ as an alternative for > some words (used in eastern New England) but not others. > ... > [quoted text clipped - 17 lines] > How about before /r/ followed by a vowel? Does "carry" rhyme with > "starry" in Malayali English? My word; you're astute - that's a good context to go searching for minimal pairs. As it happens, however, there are 3 /r/s - /r./, /r/, & /R/ - trill, tap, approximant carry=/k&ri/, <starry>=/stAr.i/ The first one has a tap; the 2nd has a trill > (That's if you don't like my suggested minimal pair of "Barry" and > "barry"--I admit that I might have the wrong pronunciation for the [quoted text clipped - 10 lines] > you don't have to believe my transcriptions. I don't know phonetics, > and most of what you've said about Malayali English is beyond me. barry is not in the Dictionary. Perhaps you mean berry or bury. > Or say. I don't have a "dge" that's separate from "j"--in fact I'd > transcribe both as /dZ/. Not surprising. Most Anglos don't have a cluster [dj^]. Think of it as a long [dZ] - [ddZ] just like Pavarotti has a long t written as 2 t's. > (Same for "ch" and "tch", both /tS/.) Those are both [tS], not [tS] and [ttS]. <dg> seems to have an atavistic trait; in my grandparents' generation, <judge> was [j^ad.ji] (like Judd Gee). > But you don't have to believe my transcriptions. I don't know phonetics, > and most of what you've said about Malayali English is beyond me. Oh, dear; I wasn't trying to knock you out teaching it to you. All I wanted to know was whether you find it preferable to transcribe some sounds differently even if they are allophones. > Jerry Friedman > barry is not in the Dictionary. Perhaps you mean berry or bury. It's certainly not in MWCD or AHD. It's a heraldic term, "covered with bars" (which are horizontal stripes). The American flag is "barry of thirteen gules and argent, a canton azure mullety argent" (or "in canton azure fifty mullets argent", which I'd prefer), according to various Web sites. I suppose that if you assume it's related to "bar" as "starry" to "star", it would have a different R sound from "Barry" in Malayali English. (There must be somebody in Kerala with the same pointless interest in heraldry that I have.) ... > > But you don't have to believe my transcriptions. I don't know phonetics, > > and most of what you've said about Malayali English is beyond me. > > Oh, dear; I wasn't trying to knock you out teaching it to you. All I > wanted to know was whether you find it preferable to transcribe some > sounds differently even if they are allophones. I was having fun thinking of words, and I'm glad if some of the pairs were useful, but I can't help on technical questions. SignatureJerry Friedman (Newsgroups line trimmed to alt.usage.english only.) [...] > > barry is not in the Dictionary. Perhaps you mean berry or bury. > It's certainly not in MWCD or AHD. It's a heraldic term, "covered with > bars" (which are horizontal stripes). The heraldic definition of "barry" is in _Merriam-Webster's Unabridged_(_MWUD_) and the _New Shorter Oxford_ (_NSOED_). _MWUD_ says it can be pronounced with either the "a" of "father" or the "a" of "bat". _NSOED_ has only the "a" of "father" for it. _MWUD_ also says the noun "barry" is another name for a barracuda, not tagged as slang. They show only the "a" of "bat" for it. In my "Mary" equals "merry" equals "marry" speech, the "barry" for barracuda and the American surname would both be pronounced the same as "berry". The _11th Collegiate_ has "Barry" as a surname of two people. For an American dramatist it has the "a" of "bat". For a mistress of Louis XV it has the "a" of "father". The online _Oxford English Dictionary_ doesn't have the noun "barry". Should someone tell them about it? Sighted in passing: In South Africa, a fish that is called elsewhere "barracuda" is called "snoek". _NSOED_ says "snoek" can be pronounced "snook" (vowel of "pool") or "snuck" (vowel of "puck"). Would neither of those pronunciations satisfy a native speaker of Afrikaans or Dutch. > Sighted in passing: In South Africa, a fish that is called > elsewhere "barracuda" is called "snoek". _NSOED_ says > "snoek" can be pronounced "snook" (vowel of "pool") or > "snuck" (vowel of "puck"). Would neither of those > pronunciations satisfy a native speaker of Afrikaans or > Dutch. Snoek in most parts of Australia rhymes with "book". SignatureRob Bannister > > Sighted in passing: In South Africa, a fish that is called > > elsewhere "barracuda" is called "snoek". _NSOED_ says > > "snoek" can be pronounced "snook" (vowel of "pool") or > > "snuck" (vowel of "puck"). Would neither of those > > pronunciations satisfy a native speaker of Afrikaans or > > Dutch. > Snoek in most parts of Australia rhymes with "book". Now that I look again, and look more carefully, that's the way _NSOED_ has it. Rhymes with "took", not "tuck". >The _11th Collegiate_ has "Barry" as a surname of two >people. For an American dramatist it has the "a" of "bat". >For a mistress of Louis XV it has the "a" of "father". The latter, however, is stressed on the second syllable: "bahREE". (I looked it up yesterday in my copy of MWCD11.) daniel mcgrath SignatureDaniel Gerard McGrath, a/k/a "Govende": for e-mail replace "invalid" with "com" Developmentally disabled; has Autism (Pervasive Developmental Disorder), Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, & periodic bouts of depression. [This signature is under construction.] >>The _11th Collegiate_ has "Barry" as a surname of two >>people. For an American dramatist it has the "a" of "bat". >>For a mistress of Louis XV it has the "a" of "father". >> > The latter, however, is stressed on the second syllable: "bahREE". (I > looked it up yesterday in my copy of MWCD11.) Well, Daniel. What do you think of pronouncing "Barre" (in Vermont, isn't it? as well as it's being the name of a township in Wisconsin) and "barre", the imported word used in ballet. (John Barry was an early US naval commander whose surname I pronounce with the same stress and first vowel as I do the first vowels in bury and berry. That means I am one of SalVo's MIMIM people.) >>>The _11th Collegiate_ has "Barry" as a surname of two >>>people. For an American dramatist it has the "a" of "bat". [quoted text clipped - 12 lines] >with the same stress and first vowel as I do the first vowels in bury >and berry. That means I am one of SalVo's MIMIM people.) I didn't know there was a Barre in Vermont, but I see there is one in Massachussets, too. I expect they both, as with Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, took it from the British radical politician Sir Isaac Barré, who was something of a hero in the colonies. Somebody seems to have decreed that US geographical names can't have accents. SignatureDon Aitken Mail to the From: address is not read. To email me, substitute "clara.co.uk" for "freeuk.com" >>What do you think of pronouncing "Barre" (in Vermont, isn't it? as well >>as it's being the name of a township in Wisconsin) and "barre", the [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] >>with the same stress and first vowel as I do the first vowels in bury >>and berry. That means I am one of SalVo's MIMIM people.) Well, "bury" and "berry" are homophones in MINMINM (both rhyming with "merry"). I know of no MINMINM word "bairy" (I suppose "beary" = like a bear is a possibility), which would rhyme with "Mary". > I didn't know there was a Barre in Vermont, but I see there is one in > Massachussets, too. I expect they both, as with Wilkes-Barre, > Pennsylvania, took it from the British radical politician Sir Isaac > Barré, who was something of a hero in the colonies. Somebody seems to > have decreed that US geographical names can't have accents. I pronounce "Barre" (Vermont) like "Barry" (rhymes with "marry"). As for Wilkes-Barre, however, that's like "Wilkes-berry" (rhymes with "merry"). SignatureSalvatore Volatile >>>What do you think of pronouncing "Barre" (in Vermont, isn't it? as >>>well [quoted text clipped - 19 lines] > As for Wilkes-Barre, however, that's like "Wilkes-berry" (rhymes with > "merry"). Strangely, when you mention Wilkes-Barre, I hear in my mind a pronunciation that calls up Missourah and Louahville--Wilkes-Bearah? > Well, "bury" and "berry" are homophones in MINMINM (both rhyming with > "merry"). Well, in some dialects. Whether "bury" and "berry" are homophones is orthogonal to whether a dialect is MINMINM. -Aaron J. Dinkin Dr. Whom >>>>The _11th Collegiate_ has "Barry" as a surname of two >>>>people. For an American dramatist it has the "a" of "bat". [quoted text clipped - 20 lines] > Barré, who was something of a hero in the colonies. Somebody seems to > have decreed that US geographical names can't have accents. Language comes from many sources. Typography is rather more limited. And if the French or Spanish have them as part of their typography, or the Germans or Norse have their special letters, well, you know, the US takes and adapts and doesn't credit the donor. (If I use it, it's mine.*) The Brits? I can't speak for them. *I was just paraphrasing an old printout (1997) from alt.support.mult-sclerosis about how dogs think. If dogs made the rules: If I like it, it's mine. If it's in my mouth, it's mine. If I can take it from you, it's mine. If I had it a while ago, it's mine. If it's mine, it must never in any way appear to be yours. If I'm chewing on it, all the pieces are mine. If it looks just like mine, it's mine. If you are playing with something and you put it down, it automatically becomes mine. (Posted by a guy in Dunsford, Ontario) [Barre/Barré] > Language comes from many sources. Typography is rather more > limited. And if the French or Spanish have them as part of their [quoted text clipped - 8 lines] > > If I like it, it's mine. [and other rules] > (Posted by a guy in Dunsford, Ontario) And there aren't many of those. We drove through Dunsford once, and I took note because that is the name of my mother's family, who settled nearby when they immigrated and probably owned the land it was built on. The town, nay, "town", was a crossroads, three buildings, and a graveyard. Maybe it had suburbs, though. > [Barre/Barré] >> Language comes from many sources. Typography is rather more [quoted text clipped - 17 lines] > on. The town, nay, "town", was a crossroads, three buildings, and a > graveyard. Maybe it had suburbs, though. Here's what he had in his sig, above the Dunsford mention: The Sheep Station Romanov Crosses Dexter Cattle I don't know if that means he purveys the sheep, crosses, and cattle, though--two barns and a workshop? Maybe he sells plots in the graveyard, too. >> [Barre/Barré] >>> Language comes from many sources. Typography is rather more [quoted text clipped - 25 lines] > cattle, though--two barns and a workshop? Maybe he sells plots in > the graveyard, too. Nah, I'm guessing he has a farm in the burbs. The buildings I saw were a general store, a church, and one I couldn't identify, or don't remember. Yeah, here we are; but watch it, it belongs to them: http://www.geocities.com/osma7/mccubbin/pic1.jpg >>The _11th Collegiate_ has "Barry" as a surname of two >>people. For an American dramatist it has the "a" of "bat". >>For a mistress of Louis XV it has the "a" of "father". > > The latter, however, is stressed on the second syllable: "bahREE". (I > looked it up yesterday in my copy of MWCD11.) Dictionaries can be misleading. There are no true stresses in French, but to an English ear expecting stress, it might sound as though it were on the last syllable. SignatureRob Bannister > >>The _11th Collegiate_ has "Barry" as a surname of two > >>people. For an American dramatist it has the "a" of "bat". > >>For a mistress of Louis XV it has the "a" of "father". > > The latter, however, is stressed on the second syllable: "bahREE". (I > > looked it up yesterday in my copy of MWCD11.) > Dictionaries can be misleading. There are no true stresses in French, > but to an English ear expecting stress, it might sound as though it were > on the last syllable. But, as usual, we need to remember that in an English language dictionary, we should expect to find pronunciations that are used by English speakers. If some English speakers say "doo barEE", that information should be considered independent of how a French speaker would pronounce it. If we want to use a dictionary to learn how words are pronounced in French, we should go to a French dictionary--if we can find one that lists proper names; mine don't. Maybe Ms Cecchini would tell us how "du Barry" is pronounced in French. Some more things need to be said about "Barry". While the _11th Collegiate_ (_MWCD11_) has the king's mistress entered under "Barry", her name was du Barry, and that's the way it's listed in the _American Heritage Dictionary 4th Edition_ (_AHD4_). As for stress, while _MWCD11_ shows the mistress "Barry" stressed on the last syllable, _AHD4_ shows it both ways, first and last syllables. But the audio pronunciation is given for only the first-syllable stress. I've let my microphone listen to it, and have installed the resultant recording at http://preview.tinyurl.com/vzh4u *. I'm not quite sure why I did that, though, because it's just as easy to hear the pronunciation at http://www.bartleby.com/61/94/D0409400.html , and you can read a few words about the Comtesse du Barry there. In addition to the two different stresses, _AHD4_ also shows alternative pronunciations of the "du": "doo" and "dyoo", where "oo" stands for the sound of the vowel in "pool". For what it's worth, which isn't much, I suppose "dyoo" is farther from the French than is "doo". True? * http://www.exw6sxq.com/sparky/aue_related/speech_examples/ahd_dubarry.mp3 . ` Bob Cunningham a écrit : [...] > If we want to use a dictionary to learn how words are > pronounced in French, we should go to a French > dictionary--if we can find one that lists proper names; mine > don't. The best-selling French dictionary in France is the Petit Larousse illustré, which lists proper names, but it doesn't usually provide pronunciations, except in cases which French-speakers might find difficult. When I'm in doubt, I usually turn to the Dictionnaire de la prononciation, by Lerond, published by Larousse. > Maybe Ms Cecchini would tell us how "du Barry" is > pronounced in French. /dybari/, in which /a/ might be any sound from /ae/ to /A/, depending on the speaker, the region, and so on. I've used /r/ to note any "French r" as well. There is no stress mark, because,as Robert has said, French doesn't have a stress in words in the same way as English does. If hard-pressed on the subject, and if I had to pronounce "du Barry" as an isolated group, then I'd say that it's stressed on the last syllable. [...] > In addition to the two different stresses, _AHD4_ also shows > alternative pronunciations of the "du": "doo" and "dyoo", > where "oo" stands for the sound of the vowel in "pool". For > what it's worth, which isn't much, I suppose "dyoo" is > farther from the French than is "doo". True? That's my feeling too, but I don't really know if the differences between /dy/ and /dju/ on the one hand, and /dy/ and /du/ on the other hand, can be measured in any way. SignatureIsabelle Cecchini > Bob Cunningham a écrit : > [...] [..] > > Maybe Ms Cecchini would tell us how "du Barry" is > > pronounced in French. In English, as we all know, we have "Ms" for use when there's doubt about whether the person mentioned is married or single (or when we don't want to make a point of the distinction). If we're writing in English, and we want to show respect for the French nationality of a person mentioned, but we don't know whether to write "Mme" or "Mlle", is there a French means that's equivalent to our "Ms"? The _Oxford Hachette French-English Dictionary_ gives "Mme" as the French for "Ms", but then it has some words of explanation--in French--of how "Ms" is used in English, with no mention of how to handle the same situation in French. By the way, I normally don't use periods with abbreviations, but the case of "Ms" raises a particular point. "Mrs" is written with the period because it's an abbreviation, but I've seen the opinion expressed that "Ms" is not an abbreviation of anything, so it should never have a period. Now I find in the _New Shorter Oxford_ (_NSOED_) that the etymology of "Ms" is "Contraction of Mrs, Miss". That suggests that people who like to use periods with abbreviations should also use a period with "Ms". It needs to be said here, though, that the situation is complicated by the British convention that calls for using no period with a contraction if the contraction ends with the same letter as the word contracted ("doctor" contracted to either "Doc." or "Dr". Following that convention, British usage would be to eschew the period after "Mrs". That is indeed the way the entry is primarily shown in _NSOED_, although they follow it with "also Mrs. (point)". Now I see that they have the entry "Ms" with no point, but they also follow that with "also Ms. (point)". The _11th Collegiate_ has for the etymology of "Ms" "probably blend of Miss and Mrs.". That poses the dilemma that the period could be used if "Ms" is taken to be from "Mrs", but not used if the etymon is thought of as "Miss". How can we denote a blend of period and no period? Bob Cunningham a écrit : [...] > In English, as we all know, we have "Ms" for use when > there's doubt about whether the person mentioned is married [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > "Mlle", is there a French means that's equivalent to our > "Ms"? I don't think there is a word different from Mme or Mlle which might fit. I hazily recollect that some suggestion about "Me" was made, but it didn't take, probably because "Me" was already the abbreviation for "Maître", the title given to lawyers, whether men or women. > The _Oxford Hachette French-English Dictionary_ gives "Mme" > as the French for "Ms", but then it has some words of > explanation--in French--of how "Ms" is used in English, with > no mention of how to handle the same situation in French. "Mme" is really the best way. The Robert dictionary gives it as the way to refer to, or to address, any woman "en âge d'être mariée" = old enough to be married. The debate in France nowadays is more about what exact title to give to women in position of authority : "Madame *le* ministre", or "Madame *la* ministre"? If a woman gets elected in our next presidential election, she will have to decide if she is "Madame le Président" or "Madame la Présidente". SignatureIsabelle Cecchini > Bob Cunningham a écrit : > [...] [quoted text clipped - 7 lines] > pronunciations, except in cases which French-speakers might find > difficult. There are French speakers who admit they sometimes find something difficult? Holy Blue! I take it they're not yer actual Citizens, Citoyenne? SignatureJohn Dean Oxford John Dean a écrit : [...] >> except in cases which French-speakers might find >> difficult. > > There are French speakers who admit they sometimes find something difficult? I never said anything of the sort, did I? Possibly finding something difficult is a far cry from admitting you found it difficult, innit? > Holy Blue! I take it they're not yer actual Citizens, Citoyenne? SignatureIsabelle Cecchini > John Dean a écrit : > [...] [quoted text clipped - 6 lines] > I never said anything of the sort, did I? Possibly finding something > difficult is a far cry from admitting you found it difficult, innit? Zut! Once again the wily Gaul out-manoeuvres the clumsy rosbif. BTW, did you know that Bentley's sequel to "Trent's Last Case" - "Trent's Own Case" - has recently come back into print? I've ordered a copy from my library. http://www.amazon.fr/Trents-Own-Case-Clerihew-Bentley/dp/0881843490 There's also a collection of short stories - "Trent Intervenes" which I'm tracking down: http://www.amazon.fr/Trent-Intervenes-E-Clerihew-Bentley/dp/0486240983 SignatureJohn Dean Oxford [...] > Zut! Once again the wily Gaul out-manoeuvres the clumsy rosbif. > BTW, did you know that Bentley's sequel to "Trent's Last Case" - "Trent's [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > tracking down: > http://www.amazon.fr/Trent-Intervenes-E-Clerihew-Bentley/dp/0486240983 Edmund C. Bentley said "Please treat me gently! I'm writing a cleriwhodunnit, and I thought of a name for the hero, but it just went." SignatureMike. John Dean a écrit : [...] > BTW, did you know that Bentley's sequel to "Trent's Last Case" - "Trent's > Own Case" - has recently come back into print? I've ordered a copy from my [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] > tracking down: > http://www.amazon.fr/Trent-Intervenes-E-Clerihew-Bentley/dp/0486240983 Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! SignatureIsabelle Cecchini > what it's worth, which isn't much, I suppose "dyoo" is > farther from the French than is "doo". True? True. SignatureRob Bannister > >The _11th Collegiate_ has "Barry" as a surname of two > >people. For an American dramatist it has the "a" of "bat". > >For a mistress of Louis XV it has the "a" of "father". > > > The latter, however, is stressed on the second syllable: "bahREE". (I > looked it up yesterday in my copy of MWCD11.) I wouldn't say it that way. It's a misconception more widespread among American English speakers than elsewhere that French words are necessarily stressed on the final syllable. As far as I know, saying the Anglo-Irish name "Barry" in a French accent will get you close enough. SignatureMike. >(Newsgroups line trimmed to alt.usage.english only.) > [quoted text clipped - 23 lines] >The online _Oxford English Dictionary_ doesn't have the noun >"barry". Should someone tell them about it? [...] In Australian slanguage, a "Barry" is "a shocker". Rhyming slang from Barry Crocker, an entertainer. Usage: "he had a Barry". SignatureRichard Bollard Canberra Australia To email, I'm at AMT not spAMT. >Sighted in passing: In South Africa, a fish that is called >elsewhere "barracuda" is called "snoek". _NSOED_ says >"snoek" can be pronounced "snook" (vowel of "pool") or >"snuck" (vowel of "puck"). Would neither of those >pronunciations satisfy a native speaker of Afrikaans or >Dutch. It's pronounced "snuck" with the U in "sugar", though I'm sure in northern England "puck" is pronounced "pook", and may even, among Geordies, be pronounced "puke" to rhyme with "book". SignatureSteve Hayes from Tshwane, South Africa Web: http://hayesfam.bravehost.com/stevesig.htm E-mail - see web page, or parse: shayes at dunelm full stop org full stop uk > > barry is not in the Dictionary. Perhaps you mean berry or bury. > [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] > as "starry" to "star", it would have a different R sound from "Barry" > in Malayali English. Barry would have a gingival tap whereas barry would have a retroflexed trill. Here are the transcriptions: <Barry> /bAri/ [b&*i] <barry> /bAr.i/ [bAr.i] > (There must be somebody in Kerala with the same > pointless interest in heraldry that I have.) Kerala has very Bohemian ideals, so one can't show interest in chivalry for fear of being called unchivalrous:-) (Replace chivalry with heraldry and unchivalrous with class conscious) > > > But you don't have to believe my transcriptions. I don't know phonetics, > > > and most of what you've said about Malayali English is beyond me. [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] > I was having fun thinking of words, and I'm glad if some of the pairs > were useful, but I can't help on technical questions. It shouldn't be all that difficult to comment on whether you would prefer Barry transcribed as /bAri/ or /b&ri/. One significance of Malayali English is that anglicised registers of Malayalam now have all the phonemes of Malayali English, so these would not necessarily be in transcriptions of just English texts. [...] > Barry would have a gingival tap whereas barry would have a retroflexed > trill. Here are the transcriptions: [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] > > Kerala has very Bohemian ideals, so one can't show interest in chivalry Whoa, wait a minute. :-) I bet you meant bohemian, not Bohemian. :-) pjk > for fear of being called unchivalrous:-) (Replace chivalry with > heraldry and unchivalrous with class conscious) [...] > [...] > > Barry would have a gingival tap whereas barry would have a retroflexed [quoted text clipped - 9 lines] > Whoa, wait a minute. :-) > I bet you meant bohemian, not Bohemian. :-) Oh, you Czechs are so sensitive. No more ravin'! Anyway, what's "pointless" about interest in heraldry? > > [...] > > > Barry would have a gingival tap whereas barry would have a retroflexed [quoted text clipped - 11 lines] > > Oh, you Czechs are so sensitive. No more ravin'! No, it wasn't any of my ex-Boii sensibilities being tweeked that made me to point out this spelling mistake. It was the very on-topic desire to get the Words right. I realize, I am more likely to notice than the next man whenever the Bohemians are being confused with 19th century Parisian gypsies. :-) No more ravin'? Good'n :-) I leave it to my more ravin' brethren to worry'bout and possibly comment on. > Anyway, what's "pointless" about interest in heraldry? I want to know too. How could a noble art be pointless? :-) pjk > I was having fun thinking of words, and I'm glad if some of the pairs > were useful, but I can't help on technical questions. How about "tarry" (covered in/consisting of tar) and "tarry" (stay, wait around)? SignatureRob Bannister > > I was having fun thinking of words, and I'm glad if some of the pairs > > were useful, but I can't help on technical questions. > > How about "tarry" (covered in/consisting of tar) and "tarry" (stay, wait > around)? Analyzing them as having different phonemes /r./ and /r/ gives the transcriptions: /tAr.i/ [ta:r.i] /tAri/ [t&*i] On 28 Dec 2006 09:32:57 -0800, "jerry_friedman@yahoo.com" in alt.usage.english,sci.lang: >> barry is not in the Dictionary. Perhaps you mean berry or bury. > It's certainly not in MWCD or AHD. It's a heraldic term, > "covered with bars" (which are horizontal stripes). It's in the OED, with citations from the Boke of St Albans (1486) and Bossewell (1572). And of course it's in any decent heraldic dictionary (e.g., Brooke-Little, Parker, Franklyn & Tanner, Friar) or elementary treatise (Boutell, Fox-Davies, Cadogan Rothery, Franklyn, Woodward & Burnett, Franklyn). [...] Brian > Not surprising. Most Anglos don't have a cluster [dj^]. Think of it as > a long [dZ] - [ddZ] just like Pavarotti has a long t written as 2 t's. Uh? We're not Italians. We don't do double t any differently from single t. SignatureRob Bannister > > Not surprising. Most Anglos don't have a cluster [dj^]. Think of it as > > a long [dZ] - [ddZ] just like Pavarotti has a long t written as 2 t's. > > Uh? We're not Italians. We don't do double t any differently from single t. We don't either; not in an English word at any rate. We do double j, though: budging baj^j^iN badging bAj^j^iN The two j^j^'s have different points of articulation, comparable to those for Mandarin ch and q, so they may also be written as budging /bad.j^iN/ [bad.j^IN] badging /bAdj^iN/ [b&dj^iN] > > > Not surprising. Most Anglos don't have a cluster [dj^]. Think of it as > > > a long [dZ] - [ddZ] just like Pavarotti has a long t written as 2 t's. [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] > We don't either; not in an English word at any rate. We do double j, > though: "We" don't. > budging baj^j^iN > badging bAj^j^iN [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > budging /bad.j^iN/ [bad.j^IN] > badging /bAdj^iN/ [b&dj^iN] I don't know what "badging" may be, but if you keep this up you'll end up with Kabardian, with all the distinctions in the consonants and no vowel phonemes at all. How many "different" consonant phonemes will there be? Aert Kuypers repented of the "vowelless" analysis of Kabardian a few years later, recanted, and renounced it. > > > > Not surprising. Most Anglos don't have a cluster [dj^]. Think of it as > > > > a long [dZ] - [ddZ] just like Pavarotti has a long t written as 2 t's. [quoted text clipped - 16 lines] > > I don't know what "badging" may be making badges, using badges as keys >, but if you keep this up you'll end > up with Kabardian, with all the distinctions in the consonants and no > vowel phonemes at all. How many "different" consonant phonemes will > there be? 34 k g N h c^ j^ n^ s; t. d. n. S Z t d n s z t[ d[ n[ th p b m f v y R r r. l l. w > Aert Kuypers repented of the "vowelless" analysis of Kabardian a few > years later, recanted, and renounced it. >> > > > Not surprising. Most Anglos don't have a cluster [dj^]. Think of it as >> > > > a long [dZ] - [ddZ] just like Pavarotti has a long t written as 2 t's. [quoted text clipped - 18 lines] > >making badges, using badges as keys I think it also referred to the probably-now-discontinued practice of affixing badges to the grills of automobiles. See: http://www.locomobilia.com/automobile_badges_auto_club.html for examples. SignatureTony Cooper Orlando, FL > > budging /bad.j^iN/ [bad.j^IN] > > badging /bAdj^iN/ [b&dj^iN] [quoted text clipped - 6 lines] > Aert Kuypers repented of the "vowelless" analysis of Kabardian a few > years later, recanted, and renounced it. Consider the following method of analysis: 1) Phonetic analysis self-explanatory 2) Subphonemic analysis aggregate some phones into subphonemes but don't aggregate two phones if it's possible for them to be separate phonemes in some phonemic analysis 3) aggregate subphonemes into phonemes For example, for a 2 word vocabulary: 1) Phonetic analysis [b&d], [bad.] 2) Subphonemic analysis Either [&] and [a] are in separate phonemes or [d] and [d.] are in separate phonemes. Since each of them has the potential to be in different phonemes, all of them are subphonemes With this limited vocabulary, each distinct phone is a distinct subphoneme but in a larger vocabulary, aggregation of phones would be possible once pairs have been identified, that have no potential for falling into different phonemes 3) Phonemic analysis Aggregate [&] and [a] into one phoneme or [d] and [d.] into one phoneme, depending on whether the analyst prefers a vowel heavy or consonant heavy analysis. For the masses, would the inventory resulting from the subphonemic analysis be more suitable than one of the multiple* phoneme inventories that can result from phonemic analysis? That is the question. * each analyst might come up with a different inventory whereas subphonemic analysis would produce only one inventory of subphonemes > > > budging /bad.j^iN/ [bad.j^IN] > > > badging /bAdj^iN/ [b&dj^iN] [quoted text clipped - 38 lines] > * each analyst might come up with a different inventory whereas > subphonemic analysis would produce only one inventory of subphonemes If your consultant thinks the two words have the same d, then they are not separate phonemes. If your consultant thinks the two words have the same a, then they are not separate phonemes. In the complete language system, there is no justification for claiming there are two d's. > > Consider the following method of analysis: > > 1) Phonetic analysis [quoted text clipped - 33 lines] > If your consultant thinks the two words have the same a, then they are > not separate phonemes. Sure. > In the complete language system, there is no justification for claiming > there are two d's. Going by the methodology outlined above, there'd be 2 d subphonmes because some subset of users think there are 2 d phonemes. There'd also be 2 A subphonemes because some, other, subset of users think there are 2 A phonemes. The subphonemic transcriber can then go about transcribing without concerning himself with whether it's the As or ds that some arbitrary reader aggregates into one phoneme. The phonemic transcriber, on the other hand, has to decide which audience he's catering to - the d aggregators or the A aggregators, before settling on a transcription standard to follow. Would the above be a reasonable case for subphonemic transcription? > > > Consider the following method of analysis: > > > 1) Phonetic analysis [quoted text clipped - 52 lines] > > Would the above be a reasonable case for subphonemic transcription? The question cannot be addressed until you find a real-world situation where the question arises. There is _no warrant_ in English for postulating two d's, since the vowels contrast in many other environments as well. It is far more economical to posit two vowels and, say, 10 consonants than one vowel and, say, 20 consonants. Especially since the pairs of consonants would have no function other than to distinguish the two preceding vowels. 29 Dec 2006 14:30:48 -0800: "Peter T. Daniels" <grammatim@verizon.net>: in sci.lang: >The question cannot be addressed until you find a real-world situation >where the question arises. There is _no warrant_ in English for [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] >Especially since the pairs of consonants would have no function other >than to distinguish the two preceding vowels. Does Russian have palatalized and non-palatalized consonants, or does it have palatalizing and non-palatalizing vowels? Same question for Irish and Scots Gaelic. Of course you have a failsafe method to decide between the two, although you refuse to explain it in simple terms so that everybody can understand it? Please prove me wrong, and I'll admit. But explain in simple wording, without any references to learned books and "scientific" theories. SignatureRuud Harmsen - http://rudhar.com > 29 Dec 2006 14:30:48 -0800: "Peter T. Daniels" > <grammatim@verizon.net>: in sci.lang: [quoted text clipped - 10 lines] > it have palatalizing and non-palatalizing vowels? > Same question for Irish and Scots Gaelic. Russian (I don't know about Gaelic) has a robust contrast between palatalized and plain consonants both before and after vowels, so shifting the burden of palatalization to vowels would require four types of vowels (non-palatilizing, pre-palatalizing, post-palatalizing, and double palatalizing). > Of course you have a failsafe method to decide between the two, > although you refuse to explain it in simple terms so that everybody > can understand it? > > Please prove me wrong, and I'll admit. But explain in simple wording, > without any references to learned books and "scientific" theories. Will Occam's razor do? Four types of phonemic vowels with an indirect, abstract connection to their phonetic implementation versus two types of consonants with a direct, concrete connection to their phonetic implementation. Nathan SignatureNathan Sanders Linguistics Program Williams College http://wso.williams.edu/~nsanders/ -- Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com Fri, 29 Dec 2006 17:49:34 -0500: Nathan Sanders <nsanders@williams.edu>: in sci.lang: >Russian (I don't know about Gaelic) has a robust contrast between >palatalized and plain consonants both before and after vowels, so [quoted text clipped - 13 lines] >two types of consonants with a direct, concrete connection to their >phonetic implementation. OK, accepted. So the spelling is misleading, and y (bI) and i (N) are really one vowel. SignatureRuud Harmsen - http://rudhar.com > Fri, 29 Dec 2006 17:49:34 -0500: Nathan Sanders > <nsanders@williams.edu>: in sci.lang: [quoted text clipped - 19 lines] > OK, accepted. So the spelling is misleading, and y (bI) and i (N) are > really one vowel. That's the standard analysis, dating back at least to Trubetzkoy. Jaye Padgett has a good description of the relevant facts in Section 2 of: http://people.ucsc.edu/~padgett/locker/russpal.pdf He further proposes an analysis with a palatal-velar contrast in the consonants to explain the way /i/ is pronounced in different environments. Nathan SignatureNathan Sanders Linguistics Program Williams College http://wso.williams.edu/~nsanders/ -- Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com > > OK, accepted. So the spelling is misleading, and y (bI) and i (N) are > > really one vowel. > > That's the standard analysis, dating back at least to Trubetzkoy. > Jaye Padgett has a good description of the relevant facts in Section 2 > of: > http://people.ucsc.edu/~padgett/locker/russpal.pdf Most illuminating; page 17 shows a diphthong [i"i] (release to peak)! I now realize what the difference between the diphthongs in my English <neigh> and Tamil <ney> is; it is [nei] vs [n[ei"]. >> OK, accepted. So the spelling is misleading, and y (bI) and i (N) are >> really one vowel. [quoted text clipped - 10 lines] > > Nathan Treating Russian <i> and <i-barred> as allophones of one phoneme is indeed standard, but it neglects to take into account recent loanwords and placenames, where <i-barred> does occur word-initially. Compare, for example, Estonian placename <O~ngu>, tranliterated in Russian as <Yngu> (Ынгу), pronounced /i<bar>ngu/, and Russian <Ingu> (Ингу), pronounced /ingu/, accusative singular of first name <Inga> (Инга). SignatureAlec St.Petersburg, Russia [30E18 59N56] > Treating Russian <i> and <i-barred> as allophones of one phoneme > is indeed standard, but it neglects to take into account recent > loanwords and placenames, where <i-barred> does occur word-initially. It does sound like the beginning of a phonemic split. I imagine that there is probably some amount of variability across speakers, largely dependent on the speaker's education and exposure to the relevant source languages. Many languages have these sort of "marginal" phonemes: German has contrastive nasal vowels, but only in French borrowings, which many speakers don't pronounce with true nasals vowels; English words like "garage" and "rouge" are often pronounced with a more native [dZ]; etc. Certainly, one could say that Russian has a six-vowel system, but it would require a note like your previous post, discussing the limited distribution of /1/. (My gut instinct also suggests that we should find some correlation between degree of marginality and order of acquisition. That is, I would expect Russian children to learn the proper use of /1/ measurably later than for the other vowels. I don't have access to any actual data, however, so this is only a guess.) Nathan SignatureNathan Sanders Linguistics Program Williams College http://wso.williams.edu/~nsanders/ -- Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com > > Treating Russian <i> and <i-barred> as allophones of one phoneme > > is indeed standard, but it neglects to take into account recent [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] > > Many languages have these sort of "marginal" phonemes Would you say that some Anglos have [ei] and [ei"] in "neigh" and "neighbor", respectively? If so, it would take something like borrowing Tamil [nei"] into their vocabulary and pronouncing it like the diphthong in "neighbor" in order for a phonemic split to occur. Is the beginning of the split in Russian similar to the [nei] vs. [nei"] contrast in that there are loanwords (rather than proper names) that contrast with native words in a *single phone* - [i] vs. [i"]? The example given was of a proper name Onga which might conceivably contrast with some other (borrowed?) proper name Inga in just one vowel - [I"Nga] vs. [iNga]. > > > Treating Russian <i> and <i-barred> as allophones of one phoneme > > > is indeed standard, but it neglects to take into account recent [quoted text clipped - 6 lines] > Would you say that some Anglos have [ei] and [ei"] in "neigh" and > "neighbor", respectively? If so, it would take something like borrowing I don't have such a difference, and I can't say I've ever noticed it in anyone else's speech. I just measured my starting and ending values for F2 (the acoustic correlate to vowel color (backness/rounding), and they were the same for both diphthongs, starting around 1900Hz and rising to about 2300Hz. (I do have a length difference, however, with the diphthong in "neigh" being about twice as long as the diphthong in "neighbor".) > Tamil [nei"] into their vocabulary and pronouncing it like the > diphthong in "neighbor" in order for a phonemic split to occur. Yes. A phonemic split can't occur until the sounds in question arise in contrastive environments, creating actual or potential (near-)minimal pairs. This usually occurs because of some other unrelated sound change (e.g., allophonic palatalization before front vowels became phonemic in Slavic when jers were deleted in certain environments). I'm not certain that pure borrowing is sufficient to create a phonemic split. The Russian case seems like evidence that it can. Nathan SignatureNathan Sanders Linguistics Program Williams College http://wso.williams.edu/~nsanders/ -- Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com > > > Many languages have these > > Would you say that some Anglos have [ei] and [ei"] in "neigh" and [quoted text clipped - 7 lines] > length difference, however, with the diphthong in "neigh" being about > twice as long as the diphthong in "neighbor".) I'm immensely gratified to have these data. Thank you. Then, my pair too might be [nei] vs. [nej] rather than [nei] vs. [nei"]. That is, if [ei] vs. [ej] be a reasonable way to indicate the length difference between the diphthongs; does any other way come to mind? > I'm not certain that pure borrowing is sufficient to create a phonemic > split. The Russian case seems like evidence that it can. How should that affect transcription? Would a combination of narrow transcription (of loanwords) and broad transcription (of native words) be a viable option? > > > > Many languages have these > > > Would you say that some Anglos have [ei] and [ei"] in "neigh" and [quoted text clipped - 12 lines] > [ei] vs. [ej] be a reasonable way to indicate the length difference > between the diphthongs; does any other way come to mind? The longer diphthong could be transcribed as [e:i], [ei:], or [e:i:], depending on where the extra length is located, though each of these are misleading. If I fond it necessary to mark the length, I would probably use the tie-bar or even something like [e<superscript i>:] to better indicate the unitary nature of the diphthong, since there is no actual break between [e] and [i], just a gradual change from something [e]-like to something [i]-like. > > I'm not certain that pure borrowing is sufficient to create a phonemic > > split. The Russian case seems like evidence that it can. > > How should that affect transcription? Would a combination of narrow > transcription (of loanwords) and broad transcription (of native words) > be a viable option? Not really. The transcription system should be consistently broad or narrow. In this case, whether you transcribe [1] would depend on whether the speaker in question uses it or not. If you are transcribing Russian in general, with no specific speaker as a reference, then the relevant [1]-initial words likely won't come up anyway, unless you are specifically concerned with the phonemic status of /1/ (in which case, you would need to explain what's going on). Either way, using [1] in environments where it is not expected under the standard analysis of Russian (i.e., using it anywhere except after a non-palatalized consonant) should not normally be done without explanation. Nathan SignatureNathan Sanders Linguistics Program Williams College http://wso.williams.edu/~nsanders/ -- Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com > > > > > Many languages have these > > > > Would you say that some Anglos have [ei] and [ei"] in "neigh" and [quoted text clipped - 20 lines] > actual break between [e] and [i], just a gradual change from something > [e]-like to something [i]-like. With respect to your "misleading" stricture: written as [ei]/[e:i], they can be pronounced as two pure vowels but written prescriptively as [ej]/ [e:j], it doesn't seem that anyone would be able to follow the prescription to the letter and pronounce them as short/ long pure vowel followed by asyllabic [i] since something asyllabic can't be pronounced in isolation. > > > I'm not certain that pure borrowing is sufficient to create a phonemic > > > split. The Russian case seems like evidence that it can. [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] > Not really. The transcription system should be consistently broad or > narrow. Inconsistency in the matter is common in India. In Malayalam orthography, Dravidian words are transcribed broadly (thereby leaving 15 consonants unused for Dravidian words) whereas Sanskritic and European words are transcribed narrowly. In Tamil, Indian words are transcribed broadly and European transcribed narrowly. > In this case, whether you transcribe [1] would depend on > whether the speaker in question uses it or not. [quoted text clipped - 9 lines] > a non-palatalized consonant) should not normally be done without > explanation. One author decided to make a habit of writing English [f] as [Hp] (literally meaning vocalic [x] followed by [p]) in a Tamil magazine, with not a word of explanation, and it became the standard way of writing [f] in loanwords. (The only other <hp> I've heard of is in Romanized Lao). > Inconsistency in the matter is common in India. In Malayalam > orthography, Dravidian words are transcribed broadly (thereby leaving > 15 consonants unused for Dravidian words) whereas Sanskritic and > European words are transcribed narrowly. In Tamil, Indian words are > transcribed broadly and European transcribed narrowly. Orthography is not transcription. There is no necessary relationship between how speakers write their language and how linguists transcribe the same language's phonemic system and phonetic pronunciations. > One author decided to make a habit of writing English [f] as [Hp] > (literally meaning vocalic [x] followed by [p]) in a Tamil magazine, > with not a word of explanation, and it became the standard way of > writing [f] in loanwords. In general, that would not be done in a properly-written (and -edited) piece of linguistics work. But what laymen writers choose to do when writing their language is their business. Nathan SignatureNathan Sanders Linguistics Program Williams College http://wso.williams.edu/~nsanders/ -- Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com > > Inconsistency in the matter is common in India. In Malayalam > > orthography, Dravidian words are transcribed broadly (thereby leaving [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] > > Orthography is not transcription. Then, I mean: "what would be the best orthographic convention for the average Russian reader?" It would be infeasible to change the orthography of their extant literature in short order but it would seem to be feasible to write loanwords such as to prescribe pronunciation in greater detail than in Russian words. 1 Jan 2007 00:48:09 -0800: "ranjit_mathews@yahoo.com" <ranjit_mathews@yahoo.com>: in sci.lang: >Then, I mean: "what would be the best orthographic convention for the >average Russian reader?" It would be infeasible to change the >orthography of their extant literature in short order but it would seem >to be feasible to write loanwords such as to prescribe pronunciation in >greater detail than in Russian words. Coming back to Russian, don't a and e also occur initially, but also without the [j]? Just like <N> and <bI>? SignatureRuud Harmsen - http://rudhar.com De valkuilen van ons denken: http://www.skepsis.nl/valkuilen.html > 1 Jan 2007 00:48:09 -0800: "ranjit_mathews@yahoo.com" > <ranjit_mathews@yahoo.com>: in sci.lang: [quoted text clipped - 7 lines] > Coming back to Russian, don't a and e also occur initially, but also > without the [j]? Just like <N> and <bI>? For all vowels except [i]/[i<bar>] only the non-post-palatalized (back?) allphone occurs in word-initial position(*). For [i]/[i<bar>] only [i] occurs in word-initial position in Russian words, but [i<bar>] word-initially (in loanwords and proper names from Estonian and from North Caucasian languages) isn't as unnatural as many other foreign sounds. Word-initial [i<bar>] is also sometimes used in Russian words which normally start with [i] for emphasis to indicate "Russianness", especially in loanwords. (*) Words that orthographically start with <e> phonetically start with [je]. SignatureAlec St.Petersburg, Russia [30E18 59N56] Mon, 1 Jan 2007 19:11:40 +0300: Alec Kojaev <AlecKojaev@excite.com>: in sci.lang: >> Coming back to Russian, don't a and e also occur initially, but also >> without the [j]? Just like <N> and <bI>? > > For all vowels except [i]/[i<bar>] only the non-post-palatalized >(back?) allphone occurs in word-initial position(*). What about the word eto = this? And all the words that start with a? What about on = he? >For [i]/[i<bar>] >only [i] occurs in word-initial position in Russian words, but [quoted text clipped - 6 lines] >(*) Words that orthographically start with <e> phonetically start with > [je]. Yes, I know, but that other e-like letter, although not frequent, also occurs in initial position, doesn't it? SignatureRuud Harmsen - http://rudhar.com > Mon, 1 Jan 2007 19:11:40 +0300: Alec Kojaev <AlecKojaev@excite.com>: > in sci.lang: [quoted text clipped - 7 lines] > What about the word eto = this? And all the words that start with a? > What about on = he? That's what I was talking about, it's always non-post-palatalized allophone. Post-palatalized (fronted?) allophones (like KAIPA [Y], SAMPA [2] of Russian [m;Yd] <m(jo)d> (мёд), "honey") do not occur word-initially. Russian <Eto> (это) "this" is pronounced [Eto], with IPA epsilon, non-post-palatalized allophone of /e/. To summarize (KAIPA): Phoneme Allophones Allophone after consonant "Hard" "Soft" "Hard" "Soft" Pause /a/ [a] [&] [a] [&] [a] /e/ [E] [e] [E] [e] [E] /i/ [i"] [i] [i"] [i] [i](rare [i"]) /o/ [o] [Y] [o] [Y] [o] /u/ [u] [u"] [u] [u"] [u] "Soft" consonants are all palatalized, plus [j], [tS], [S;:] and [Z;:] (not present in my dialect). All other consonants are "hard". Standard Russian has five vowel phonemes, plus [i"] has marginal status. In my (St.Petersburg) dialect [E] also has marginal status, occuring in some loanwords after "soft" consonants, where Standard Russian allows only [e]. SignatureAlec St.Petersburg, Russia [30E18 59N56] > > Mon, 1 Jan 2007 19:11:40 +0300: Alec Kojaev <AlecKojaev@excite.com>: > > in sci.lang: [quoted text clipped - 23 lines] > /o/ [o] [Y] [o] [Y] [o] > /u/ [u] [u"] [u] [u"] [u] Column 3 & 4 seem to be duplicates of 1 & 2. I don't understand what the Pause column means. > "Soft" consonants are all palatalized, plus [j], [tS], [S;:] and > [Z;:] (not present in my dialect). All other consonants are "hard". [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] > occuring in some loanwords after "soft" consonants, where Standard > Russian allows only [e]. >> To summarize (KAIPA): >> [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] >> /o/ [o] [Y] [o] [Y] [o] >> /u/ [u] [u"] [u] [u"] [u] 1 Jan 2007 16:33:58 -0800: "ranjit_mathews@yahoo.com" <ranjit_mathews@yahoo.com>: in sci.lang: >Column 3 & 4 seem to be duplicates of 1 & 2. I don't understand what >the Pause column means. Sound after a pause, so it included "word initial"? The assymetric thing is that all vowel phonemes have their "broad" variety in that position, except /i/, which normally has the "slender" kind. OTOH, slender /e/ and /a/ also occur in such positions. But then a preceding /j/ is assumed? So couldn't initial [i] be seen as /ji/ and initial <bI> as a (rarely ocurring) /i/? SignatureRuud Harmsen - http://rudhar.com >>> To summarize (KAIPA): >>> [quoted text clipped - 19 lines] > preceding /j/ is assumed? So couldn't initial [i] be seen as /ji/ and > initial <bI> as a (rarely ocurring) /i/? Exactly. As to the columns, columns 1-2 give "hard" and "soft" allophones of vowels, and columns 3-5 show which allophones are usually used after "hard" and "soft" consonants and after pause. Word-initial position is not necessarily after pause in fluent speech. I'm not sure I've ever encountered [&] or [e] after pause. Any examples? In words like <est;> (есть) orthography is misleading, they actually start with [je], because letter <e> usually corresponds either to [je] or to [;e] (that is, either diphthong or palatalization of preceding consonant plus fronted allophone). It is similar to letters <(ja)>, <(ju)> and <(jo)>. To indicate monophthong without palatalization you'll have to use letter "e reversed" (э) which always gives [E] allophone. In general, "soft" vowel allophones are "north-west" (more to front and slightly more closed) than corresponding "hard" allophones. SignatureAlec St.Petersburg, Russia [30E18 59N56] Tue, 2 Jan 2007 15:17:11 +0300: Alec Kojaev <AlecKojaev@excite.com>: in sci.lang: > I'm not sure I've ever encountered [&] or [e] after pause. Any >examples? I, Helena: R, e/|eHa SignatureRuud Harmsen - http://rudhar.com > Tue, 2 Jan 2007 15:17:11 +0300: Alec Kojaev <AlecKojaev@excite.com>: > in sci.lang: [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] > > I, Helena: R, e/|eHa [j& jel;ena], at least in standard dialect. [j] in [je] can be reduced in fluent speech, but then the first [e] becomes [E] (or [i], depending on dialect). Another possible variation is [je] -> [j&] in South and South-West dialects. SignatureAlec St.Petersburg, Russia [30E18 59N56] > >>> To summarize (KAIPA): > >>> [quoted text clipped - 33 lines] > palatalization you'll have to use letter "e reversed" (í) which always > gives [E] allophone. Similarly, you can use <u> rather than <yu> to get Uzi vs. Yuri? > In general, "soft" vowel allophones are "north-west" (more to > front and slightly more closed) than corresponding "hard" allophones. >> examples? In words like <est;> (Õáâì) orthography is misleading, they >> actually start with [je], because letter <e> usually corresponds [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] > > Similarly, you can use <u> rather than <yu> to get Uzi vs. Yuri? Yes. Letters <a>, <E>, <o>, <u> are "non-iotated", <ja>, <e>, <jo> and <ju> -- "iotated". Iotated letters denote either diphthong with [j] or palatalization of preceding consonant, depending on position. In places where iotated letters are used the vowel allophone is always "soft". Whether allophone denoted by non-iotated letters is "hard" or "soft" depends on position. SignatureAlec St.Petersburg, Russia [30E18 59N56] > >> To summarize (KAIPA): > >> [quoted text clipped - 12 lines] > > Sound after a pause, so it included "word initial"? If the phonetic environment doesn't include the consonant after the vowel, it makes the intonation seem CV syllabic like in didactic pronunciation of Indian languages. Does the following consonant have no influence even if it's the first consonant of a cluster? In Indian languages, even in didactic recitation, V or V' or both can differ between a CVC'V' and CVCC'V' environment. > > > Inconsistency in the matter is common in India. In Malayalam > > > orthography, Dravidian words are transcribed broadly (thereby leaving [quoted text clipped - 6 lines] > Then, I mean: "what would be the best orthographic convention for the > average Russian reader?" I don't think I understand why you ask this. The current Russian writing system works just fine for the words under discussion. In addition, I'm not sure I think there is any such thing as a "best" writing convention for any language, given the complexities introduced by dialectal variation, historical detritus, morphophonological alternations, and future sound changes. > It would be infeasible to change the > orthography of their extant literature in short order but it would seem > to be feasible to write loanwords such as to prescribe pronunciation in > greater detail than in Russian words. Writing systems are primarily intended for reading, not for speaking, so encoding full pronunciation isn't necessary (especially for the kinds of words we're talking about). English writing is an inconsistent mix of Latinate, Greek, and pre-Great Vowel Shift Germanic conventions, and Japanese writing includes heavy use of logographic kanji, and yet, these apparent impediments to pronunciation do not prevent English and Japanese literacy rates from being among the highest in the world. Nathan SignatureNathan Sanders Linguistics Program Williams College http://wso.williams.edu/~nsanders/ -- Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com > > Then, I mean: "what would be the best orthographic convention for the > > average Russian reader?" > > I don't think I understand why you ask this. ... because if the current writing convention doesn't allow <bI> at the beginning of a word, it doesn't seem adequate for telling a reader that one is alluding to [i"Nga], not [iNga]. That might lead to mixups; an Indian physicist visiting Moscow once tried to ask an operator for another physicist named Mr. Hilbert (who was there at the time) to be told that there was no such person. It eventually turned out the mixup was because some Russian thought [g] was the closest approximation for [h] and listed him as Gilbert. There might not have been such a mixup if Hilbert had had the prescience to insist that his name be listed as [xilbrt]. > The current Russian > writing system works just fine for the words under discussion. > > > Then, I mean: "what would be the best orthographic convention for the > > > average Russian reader?" [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > beginning of a word, it doesn't seem adequate for telling a reader that > one is alluding to [i"Nga], not [iNga]. That might lead to mixups; an And the current writing convention of most languages isn't adequate for telling a reader which female is referred to by "her" in sentences like "Jill give Mary her necklace". Subscript indices would be very handy here, but no writing system I'm aware of uses any such things, and just lives with the potential ambiguity. > Indian physicist visiting Moscow once tried to ask an operator for > another physicist named Mr. Hilbert (who was there at the time) to be [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] > if Hilbert had had the prescience to insist that his name be listed as > [xilbrt]. Or if the Indian physicist had had the presence to learn that Russians traditionally transliterate English [h] with <g> and phrased his question to the operator more appropriately. Why shouldn't a visitor be expected to learn a little about the language of the country he is visiting, instead of arrogantly assuming that everyone there will change their ways just to accommodate him and his ignorance? Has the embarrassing behavior of the stereotypical "ugly American" infected other countries now? Nathan SignatureNathan Sanders Linguistics Program Williams College http://wso.williams.edu/~nsanders/ -- Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com > > ... because if the current writing convention doesn't allow <bI> at the > > beginning of a word, it doesn't seem adequate for telling a reader that [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] > handy here, but no writing system I'm aware of uses any such things, > and just lives with the potential ambiguity. Two verbs for "give" are very handy here; the two can easily be distinguished in Malayalam and classical Tamil. It's not so easy in modern spoken Tamil because with one of the verbs having fallen into disuse, the other is used with both meanings. > Or if the Indian physicist had had the presence to learn that Russians > traditionally transliterate English [h] with <g> and phrased his > question to the operator more appropriately. Does the stereotypical "ugly American" learn Russian before going to Russia? This chap's Russian teacher had been Canadian, not Russian, and didn't teach that Russians write [h] as <g>, so how should he have known that they do this? > Why shouldn't a visitor be expected to learn a little about the > language of the country he is visiting, instead of arrogantly assuming > that everyone there will change their ways just to accommodate him and > his ignorance? Has the embarrassing behavior of the stereotypical > "ugly American" infected other countries now? > > > ... because if the current writing convention doesn't allow <bI> at the > > > beginning of a word, it doesn't seem adequate for telling a reader that [quoted text clipped - 25 lines] > > his ignorance? Has the embarrassing behavior of the stereotypical > > "ugly American" infected other countries now? It seems unlikely that anyone studying Russian in Canada would never have been exposed to any proper names containing /h/ that were put into Russian. > It seems unlikely that anyone studying Russian in Canada would never > have been exposed to any proper names containing /h/ that were put into > Russian. Moreover, I'd bet that more than a few people who have never studied Russian at all, but who have read about Russia or read Russian books in translation, would be aware of this phenomenon. SignatureRob Bannister > > Does the stereotypical "ugly American" learn Russian before going to > > Russia? This chap's Russian teacher had been Canadian, not Russian, and [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > have been exposed to any proper names containing /h/ that were put into > Russian. His study materials had only Russian names like Anna and Anton. Why did you think it was unlikely? > > > Does the stereotypical "ugly American" learn Russian before going to > > > Russia? This chap's Russian teacher had been Canadian, not Russian, and [quoted text clipped - 7 lines] > His study materials had only Russian names like Anna and Anton. Why did > you think it was unlikely? Because it's unlikely that anyone studying Russian anywhere would never have been exposed to any proper names containing /h/ that were put into Russian. > > > > Does the stereotypical "ugly American" learn Russian before going to > > > > Russia? This chap's Russian teacher had been Canadian, not Russian, and [quoted text clipped - 11 lines] > have been exposed to any proper names containing /h/ that were put into > Russian. Bah! I got some free instructional materials (for the 1st of 6 Russian courses) and a free literary magazine subscription from the Soviet Consulate in Madras. There wasn't a single non-Russian name in the instructional materials or in any of the short stories or poems in the magazine. There weren't even any non-Russian cars in the stories and I don't think any of the seafaring stories had any foreign ports of call with Hs in them. Besides, most people taking an introductory course, wouldn't be trying to wade through a magazine, they'd be using a textbook and as noted, there wasn't a single non-Russian name in the instructional materials, not even in the writing comprehension section that had samples of handwritten material that real live Russians wrote for other Russians to read. > > > > > Does the stereotypical "ugly American" learn Russian before going to > > > > > Russia? This chap's Russian teacher had been Canadian, not Russian, and [quoted text clipped - 24 lines] > that had samples of handwritten material that real live Russians wrote > for other Russians to read. Pretty rum instructional materials they were, then. (Do you use the archaism "rum"?) In first-year Modern Hebrew, for which the text was the execrable FSI manual, we had subscriptions to an Israeli newspaper made for elementary learners that had news stories about current events, as well as jokes and stories. > > > > > > Does the stereotypical "ugly American" learn Russian before going to > > > > > > Russia? This chap's Russian teacher had been Canadian, not Russian, and [quoted text clipped - 26 lines] > > Pretty rum instructional materials they were, then. No; they were very good, considering how much they packed into the first of the six courses. Mir publishers (of Moscow) had some excellent books on other subjects too, in impeccable English; the best explanation of relativity I've seen was in one of their books. > (Do you use the archaism "rum"?) Only in contexts like "life, laddie, is rum". > In first-year Modern Hebrew, for which the text was the execrable FSI > manual, we had subscriptions to an Israeli newspaper made for > elementary learners that had news stories about current events, as well > as jokes and stories. Very good, but that was a whole year's worth of course work whereas mine was half a semester's worth. > > > Bah! I got some free instructional materials (for the 1st of 6 Russian > > > courses) and a free literary magazine subscription from the Soviet [quoted text clipped - 10 lines] > > > > Pretty rum instructional materials they were, then. I'd express the thought with "crummy". > No; they were very good, considering how much they packed into the > first of the six courses. Mir publishers (of Moscow) had some excellent > books on other subjects too, in impeccable English; the best > explanation of relativity I've seen was in one of their books. > > (Do you use the archaism "rum"?) > Only in contexts like "life, laddie, is rum". ... or to wistfully say, "a rummy state of affairs". > > In first-year Modern Hebrew, for which the text was the execrable FSI > > manual, we had subscriptions to an Israeli newspaper made for > > elementary learners that had news stories about current events, as well > > as jokes and stories. > Very good, but that was a whole year's worth of course work whereas > mine was half a semester's worth. More like half a trimester's worth actually; all 6 together would have been a year's worth of study. Ar an triú lá de mí Eanair, scríobh ranjit: > > (Do you use the archaism "rum"?) > > Only in contexts like "life, laddie, is rum". What’s archaic about it? SignatureWhen I was in the scouts, the leader told me to pitch a tent. I couldn't find any pitch, so I used creosote. > Ar an triú lá de mí Eanair, scríobh ranjit: > [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] > > What's archaic about it? It's not used in ordinary life. It occurs in period pieces. Ar an triú lá de mí Eanair, scríobh Peter T. Daniels: > > Ar an triú lá de mí Eanair, scríobh ranjit: > > > Peter T. Daniels wrote: [quoted text clipped - 6 lines] > > It's not used in ordinary life. It occurs in period pieces. Apparently in your particular variety, and not in English in general. SignatureWhen I was in the scouts, the leader told me to pitch a tent. I couldn't find any pitch, so I used creosote. > Ar an triú lá de mí Eanair, scríobh Peter T. Daniels: > [quoted text clipped - 10 lines] > > Apparently in your particular variety, and not in English in general. Do try to remember, there are 300,000,000 of us and rather fewer than that of you. ... > > > It's not used in ordinary life. It occurs in period pieces. > > > > Apparently in your particular variety, and not in English in general. > > Do try to remember, there are 300,000,000 of us and rather fewer than > that of you. Doesn't change the fact that it's a particular variety. >> Ar an triú lá de mí Eanair, scríobh ranjit: >> [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] >> >> What's archaic about it? I was just going to ask that. :-) >It's not used in ordinary life. It occurs in period pieces. In that case down'ere we live our extraordinary lives in a period piece. :-) We also often say "I reckon" instead of "I think" or "I believe". AFAIK, even English stopped doing that quite a while ago. :-) pjk >>> Ar an triú lá de mí Eanair, scríobh ranjit: >>> > Peter T. Daniels wrote: >>> > > (Do you use the archaism "rum"?) >>> > Only in contexts like "life, laddie, is rum". >>> What's archaic about it? > I was just going to ask that. :-) >>It's not used in ordinary life. It occurs in period pieces. > In that case down'ere we live our extraordinary lives > in a period piece. :-) > We also often say "I reckon" instead of "I think" or "I believe". > AFAIK, even English stopped doing that quite a while ago. :-) Hmph. *My* English didn't. Brian > On Thu, 4 Jan 2007 19:44:09 +1300, Paul J Kriha > > We also often say "I reckon" instead of "I think" or "I believe". > > AFAIK, even English stopped doing that quite a while ago. :-) > > Hmph. *My* English didn't. Nor did the Beverly Hillbillies. > >>> Ar an triú lá de mí Eanair, scríobh ranjit: > >>> > Peter T. Daniels wrote: [quoted text clipped - 16 lines] > > Hmph. *My* English didn't. Nyah. I don't know why I said "even English", I reckon, I wanted to say "many Englishes" :-) pjk > Nyah. I don't know why I said "even English", I reckon, I wanted > to say "many Englishes" :-) That is a point of confusion in my terminology: 1. Indian Englishes: they vary by region and are often heavily accented and have many Indianisms; even I sometimes have to translate a snippet into an Indian language to figure out what the speaker is likely to mean by using some peculiar construction when speaking English. 2. Indian English: fairly standard across regions, spoken by few (of the order of 100,000 if all identifiably regional accents are disqualified) and except in intonation, varies less from (an archaic) RP than Englishes spoken by a good fraction of Anglos. If I use the latter term, people often think I mean the former. Can you suggest an alternate term that would be less likely to cause confusion? Notes about #2: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_English The form of English that Indians (and other subcontinentals) are taught in schools is essentially British English, especially Scottish English, which influenced Indian dialects with rhoticity and trilled r. For most, it is desirable to emulate the brand of English that is linguistically known as Received Pronunciation or, more commonly, BBC English. Following the departure of the British from India in 1947, Indian English took on a divergent evolution and many phrases that the British may consider antiquated are still popular in India. The legacy of the East India company and its babus still prevails in all official correspondence in India. Official letters continue to include phrases like "please do the needful" and "you will be intimated shortly". This difference in style, though, is not as marked a difference as between British and American English. Older British writers who made creative (and comical) use of now obsolete forms of colloquial English, like P.G. Wodehouse, and others who were en vogue fifty years ago, like Thomas Hardy, are still popular in India. It is ironic that although British writers Enid Blyton, P.G. Wodehouse and Agatha Christie are now considered to have held racist views in their time, their books remain immensely popular in India. British writer, journalist and wit Malcolm Muggeridge once joked that the last Englishman would be an Indian. > We also often say "I reckon" instead of "I think" or "I believe". > AFAIK, even English stopped doing that quite a while ago. :-) If you use it for "I think", what do you use for saying "I reckon we'll be there in another 10 minutes". > > We also often say "I reckon" instead of "I think" or "I believe". > > AFAIK, even English stopped doing that quite a while ago. :-) > > If you use it for "I think", what do you use for saying "I reckon we'll > be there in another 10 minutes". I would interpret that as "I guess," meaning a prediction, not an uninformed speculation. On 4 Jan 2007 10:45:39 -0800, "ranjit_mathews@yahoo.com" in alt.usage.english,sci.lang: >> We also often say "I reckon" instead of "I think" or "I >> believe". AFAIK, even English stopped doing that quite a >> while ago. :-) > If you use it for "I think", what do you use for saying "I > reckon we'll be there in another 10 minutes". ??? 'I reckon we'll be there in another 10 minutes' means precisely 'I think/expect that we'll be there in another 10 minutes', with an implication in both cases that there's some reason for this belief. Brian > On 4 Jan 2007 10:45:39 -0800, "ranjit_mathews@yahoo.com" > in alt.usage.english,sci.lang: [quoted text clipped - 10 lines] > minutes', with an implication in both cases that there's > some reason for this belief. How different is it from "according to my calculations, we'll be there in 10 minutes"? On 4 Jan 2007 11:35:19 -0800, "ranjit_mathews@yahoo.com" in alt.usage.english,sci.lang: >> On 4 Jan 2007 10:45:39 -0800, "ranjit_mathews@yahoo.com" >> in alt.usage.english,sci.lang: >>>> We also often say "I reckon" instead of "I think" or "I >>>> believe". AFAIK, even English stopped doing that quite a >>>> while ago. :-) >>> If you use it for "I think", what do you use for saying "I >>> reckon we'll be there in another 10 minutes". >> 'I reckon we'll be there in another 10 minutes' means >> precisely 'I think/expect that we'll be there in another 10 >> minutes', with an implication in both cases that there's >> some reason for this belief. > How different is it from "according to my calculations, > we'll be there in 10 minutes"? It doesn't imply any actual calculation. Of course, 'according to my calculations, we'll be there in 10 minutes' may very well mean 'by my best estimate ...', even when it's not intended to be at least slightly facetious, so there's considerable overlap between the two. Brian > > On 4 Jan 2007 10:45:39 -0800, "ranjit_mathews@yahoo.com" > > in alt.usage.english,sci.lang: [quoted text clipped - 13 lines] > How different is it from "according to my calculations, we'll be there > in 10 minutes"? It's somewhere between guessing or thinking, and precisely calculating. pjk >>We also often say "I reckon" instead of "I think" or "I believe". >>AFAIK, even English stopped doing that quite a while ago. :-) > > If you use it for "I think", what do you use for saying "I reckon we'll > be there in another 10 minutes". I would interpret that every time as "I think/believe". The calculate meaning is rarely used except with the noun "reckoning". SignatureRob Bannister > >>We also often say "I reckon" instead of "I think" or "I believe". > >>AFAIK, even English stopped doing that quite a while ago. :-) [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > I would interpret that every time as "I think/believe". The calculate > meaning is rarely used except with the noun "reckoning". How about with "that"? Does it get it closer to reckoning? "I reckon that we'll be there in another 10 minutes" vs. "As per my reckoning, we should be there in 10 minutes" On 4 Jan 2007 15:59:07 -0800, "ranjit_mathews@yahoo.com" in alt.usage.english,sci.lang: >>>>We also often say "I reckon" instead of "I think" or "I believe". >>>>AFAIK, even English stopped doing that quite a while ago. :-) >>> If you use it for "I think", what do you use for saying "I reckon we'll >>> be there in another 10 minutes". >> I would interpret that every time as "I think/believe". The calculate >> meaning is rarely used except with the noun "reckoning". > How about with "that"? Does it get it closer to reckoning? No. > "I reckon that we'll be there in another 10 minutes" vs. > "As per my reckoning, we should be there in 10 minutes" Unidiomatic; it should be 'By my reckoning'. And it doesn't imply any actual calculation, though it's not incompatible with such an interpretation. Brian > > >>We also often say "I reckon" instead of "I think" or "I believe". > > >>AFAIK, even English stopped doing that quite a while ago. :-) [quoted text clipped - 8 lines] > "I reckon that we'll be there in another 10 minutes" vs. > "As per my reckoning, we should be there in 10 minutes" "per my reckoning" implies actual calculations having been made. "I reckon" is something like "I expect", "I believe", a good quick estimate possibly based on the past experience. pjk > <ranjit_mathews@yahoo.com> wrote in message > > "I reckon that we'll be there in another 10 minutes" vs. > > "As per my reckoning, we should be there in 10 minutes" [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] > "I reckon" is something like "I expect", "I believe", a good quick > estimate possibly based on the past experience. Thanks. > > We also often say "I reckon" instead of "I think" or "I believe". > > AFAIK, even English stopped doing that quite a while ago. :-) > > If you use it for "I think", what do you use for saying "I reckon we'll > be there in another 10 minutes". "reckon" can still be used in the usual "count" "calculate" sense. The English is actually not the only European language in this usage of "reckon". There are other languages that make frequent use of the equivalent of "reckon" in sentences about thinking of the future. In my E. I suppose any of the "I reckon we'll be there in another 10 minutes" or "I figure we'll be there in another 10 minutes" or "I think we'll be there in another 10 minutes" or "I bet we'll be there in another 10 minutes" or "I suppose we'll be there in another 10 minutes" or "I expect we'll be there in another 10 minutes" etc. would do. :-) pjk > > > > > > > Does the stereotypical "ugly American" learn Russian before going to > > > > > > > Russia? This chap's Russian teacher had been Canadian, not Russian, and [quoted text clipped - 35 lines] > > Only in contexts like "life, laddie, is rum". A "rum sort of something" pops up now and then: A rum sort of fellow... He was a rum sort of cove... This is a rum sort of world.. I found a rum sort of thing in the garden... What a rum job this is... pjk >>>Does the stereotypical "ugly American" learn Russian before going to >>>Russia? This chap's Russian teacher had been Canadian, not Russian, and [quoted text clipped - 7 lines] > His study materials had only Russian names like Anna and Anton. Why did > you think it was unlikely? Because, long before I started studying Russian, I noticed items in newspaper reports demonstrating the phenomenon. During the long Cold War, there were a lot of reports on and about Russia and things like that were often commented on. I regret I can't remember an example off-hand. Perhaps your man was too young. SignatureRob Bannister Mon, 01 Jan 2007 14:37:11 -0500: Nathan Sanders <nsanders@williams.edu>: in sci.lang: >Or if the Indian physicist had had the presence to learn that Russians >traditionally transliterate English [h] with <g> and phrased his [quoted text clipped - 7 lines] >Has the embarrassing behavior of the stereotypical "ugly American" >infected other countries now? Certainly. All Dutch are exactly like that. Except me. It's even worse. Americans assume everyone should speak English. Dutch people even think they themselves speak good English, although they don't. SignatureRuud Harmsen - http://rudhar.com > > > Then, I mean: "what would be the best orthographic convention for the > > > average Russian reader?" [quoted text clipped - 11 lines] > if Hilbert had had the prescience to insist that his name be listed as > [xilbrt]. Eisengower defeated Gitler in 1945. Ask any Russian. > Eisengower defeated Gitler in 1945. Ask any Russian. Considering that something pronounced like aftobus is a bus that runs on its own steam leaves one half expecting it to be pronounced Aysengoffer:-) Seriously, in some contexts, I can't tell the sound of their <vita> apart from the sound of their <phi>. On 1 Jan 2007 17:03:43 -0800, "ranjit_mathews@yahoo.com" in alt.usage.english,sci.lang: >> Eisengower defeated Gitler in 1945. Ask any Russian. > Considering that something pronounced like aftobus is a bus that runs > on its own steam leaves one half expecting it to be pronounced > Aysengoffer:-) Seriously, in some contexts, I can't tell the sound of > their <vita> apart from the sound of their <phi>. Of course not: [v] undergoes regressive voicing assimilation. Brian 1 Jan 2007 17:03:43 -0800: "ranjit_mathews@yahoo.com" <ranjit_mathews@yahoo.com>: in sci.lang: >> Eisengower defeated Gitler in 1945. Ask any Russian. Probably because southern Russian dialects have [Q] for <g>, not [g]. Older northern ones too? >Considering that something pronounced like aftobus is a bus that runs >on its own steam leaves one half expecting it to be pronounced >Aysengoffer:-) Seriously, in some contexts, I can't tell the sound of >their <vita> apart from the sound of their <phi>. Modern Greeks or Russian? If the latter: their final /v/ _is_ [f]. SignatureRuud Harmsen - http://rudhar.com > Eisengower defeated Gitler in 1945. Ask any Russian. Strangely enough, this is wrong. It's [g;itl;er] (Гитлер) but [Ejz;enxauEr] (Эйзенхауер). We do no better with Doctor John H. Watson [Batson] (Ватсон) and Doctor James D. Watson [uotson] (Уотсон). SignatureAlec St.Petersburg, Russia [30E18 59N56] Sat, 30 Dec 2006 13:56:28 -0500: Nathan Sanders <nsanders@williams.edu>: in sci.lang: >It does sound like the beginning of a phonemic split. I imagine that >there is probably some amount of variability across speakers, largely >dependent on the speaker's education and exposure to the relevant >source languages. > >Many languages have these sort of "marginal" phonemes: Except when I mention examples of it: then Peter Daniels says it is impossible. Either two sounds are separate phonemes, or they are not, there is no 'maybe' in between. No "twijfelfonemen" as I call them in Dutch, "doubted phonemes". SignatureRuud Harmsen - http://rudhar.com > Sat, 30 Dec 2006 13:56:28 -0500: Nathan Sanders > <nsanders@williams.edu>: in sci.lang: [quoted text clipped - 10 lines] > there is no 'maybe' in between. No "twijfelfonemen" as I call them in > Dutch, "doubted phonemes". Your example wasn't remotely like Nathan's. You claimed that the facts of one dialect have some bearing on the phonemic analysis of another dialect, which is nonsense. In any particular Russian idiolect, i and 1 either are or are not separate phonemes -- which is exactly what Nathan said. Eventually, all Russian-speakers will learn the distinction in the cradle, and there will be no doubt whatsoever about /i/ and /1/ -- even if the distinction occurs only in some environments. 31 Dec 2006 05:50:50 -0800: "Peter T. Daniels" <grammatim@verizon.net>: in sci.lang: >> >Many languages have these sort of "marginal" phonemes: >> [quoted text clipped - 7 lines] >You claimed that the facts of one dialect have some bearing on the >phonemic analysis of another dialect, which is nonsense. The dialects are always perfectly distinct? Any speaker only ever speaks one and the same dialect? No persons exist who have traits from several and sometimes mix them, for example because one parent is from one region, the other parent from another, they grew up somewhere else and then somewhere else, and now live somewhere else yet again, with a partner with a similar background? What do you think will happen to their children? >In any particular Russian idiolect, i and 1 either are or are not >separate phonemes -- No speakers exist who sometimes pronounce this loanword with an [i] and another time with [1], because they are only vaguely aware of the existence and origin of the name, and have or have not seen the spelling, or have seen it but only vaguely remember it? >which is exactly what Nathan said. Did he? I can't recall. >Eventually, all >Russian-speakers will learn the distinction in the cradle, and there >will be no doubt whatsoever about /i/ and /1/ -- even if the >distinction occurs only in some environments. If the non-automatic difference exists only in loan-words or placenames from Baltic languages, most Russians will learn them much later than the cradle. SignatureRuud Harmsen - http://rudhar.com De valkuilen van ons denken: http://www.skepsis.nl/valkuilen.html > 31 Dec 2006 05:50:50 -0800: "Peter T. Daniels" > <grammatim@verizon.net>: in sci.lang: [quoted text clipped - 13 lines] > The dialects are always perfectly distinct? Any speaker only ever > speaks one and the same dialect? So you also don't know what "idiolect" means? > No persons exist who have traits from > several and sometimes mix them, for example because one parent is from > one region, the other parent from another, they grew up somewhere else > and then somewhere else, and now live somewhere else yet again, with a > partner with a similar background? Yes, after all those influences, their idiolect at any particular time and social situation will have one and only one phonemic system. > What do you think will happen to > their children? See below. > >In any particular Russian idiolect, i and 1 either are or are not > >separate phonemes -- [quoted text clipped - 7 lines] > > Did he? I can't recall. That would be because you snipped the relevant paragraph, the one immediately before the one you left in.. > >Eventually, all > >Russian-speakers will learn the distinction in the cradle, and there [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > placenames from Baltic languages, most Russians will learn them much > later than the cradle. PLEASE try to pay attention. Or do you not know the word "eventually"? To be sure, it's a faux ami in both German and French, so maybe it is in Dutch, also. 31 Dec 2006 06:13:44 -0800: "Peter T. Daniels" <grammatim@verizon.net>: in sci.lang: >> 31 Dec 2006 05:50:50 -0800: "Peter T. Daniels" >> <grammatim@verizon.net>: in sci.lang: [quoted text clipped - 15 lines] > >So you also don't know what "idiolect" means? I do. Same question for that then: "The idiolects are always perfectly distinct? Any speaker only ever speaks one and the same idiolect?" It only becomes more convincing by that change. >> >Eventually, all >> >Russian-speakers will learn the distinction in the cradle, and there [quoted text clipped - 8 lines] >To be sure, it's a faux ami in both German and French, so maybe it is >in Dutch, also. It is, and I am fully aware of that, especially because I sometimes translate English written by Frenchmen or Germans, who tend to use it the wrong way. Even with eventually in the English sense not ignored, I still insist on what I wrote. SignatureRuud Harmsen - http://rudhar.com De valkuilen van ons denken: http://www.skepsis.nl/valkuilen.html > 31 Dec 2006 06:13:44 -0800: "Peter T. Daniels" > <grammatim@verizon.net>: in sci.lang: [quoted text clipped - 22 lines] > "The idiolects are always perfectly distinct? Any speaker only ever > speaks one and the same idiolect?" No, then you _don't_ understand the word "idiolect." Any speaker only ever speaks one and the same idiolect at a single point in time and (social) space. > It only becomes more convincing by that change. A big problem is that you skipped Linguistics 101! > >> >Eventually, all > >> >Russian-speakers will learn the distinction in the cradle, and there [quoted text clipped - 15 lines] > Even with eventually in the English sense not ignored, I still insist > on what I wrote. Then what you don't understand is language change. _Why_ do you suppose Labov does all his nationwide phonetic sampling? It's how you observe a _change in progress_. There was a phonemic system, a changed spreads among the people so some people have a different phonemic system, eventually the whole language has a different phonemic system (or the change stops spreading, and you get two very, very similar languages [or, of course, "dialects"]). The children of the people with the new system don't ever encounter the old system (except in that the people from over there talk funny). That happens eventually. 31 Dec 2006 09:13:31 -0800: "Peter T. Daniels" <grammatim@verizon.net>: in sci.lang: >> >> The dialects are always perfectly distinct? Any speaker only ever >> >> speaks one and the same dialect? [quoted text clipped - 8 lines] >ever speaks one and the same idiolect at a single point in time and >(social) space. Yes. So in a language that is the transition phase from having, say 35 phonemes to having 36, a single speaker has 35 phonemes for two minutes, then 36 for 20 seconds and them 35 again, for 10 minutes. And so on adn so on. >> It only becomes more convincing by that change. > >A big problem is that you skipped Linguistics 101! Your problem is that you live in an ivory tower of nice theories and refuse to face real life linguistic problems. >> It is, and I am fully aware of that, especially because I sometimes >> translate English written by Frenchmen or Germans, who tend to use it [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > >Then what you don't understand is language change. Do you? How does a transition like the above take place in your view? >_Why_ do you suppose >Labov does all his nationwide phonetic sampling? It's how you observe a [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] >change stops spreading, and you get two very, very similar languages >[or, of course, "dialects"]). That only support my view and contradicts yours. >The children of the people with the new system don't ever encounter the >old system See? You live in a world of theory, you never hear real people talk. >(except in that the people from over there talk funny). That >happens eventually. But gradually, which is the point. So there is a transition period (whch can take many many years) in which you just cannot tell. SignatureRuud Harmsen - http://rudhar.com De valkuilen van ons denken: http://www.skepsis.nl/valkuilen.html > 31 Dec 2006 09:13:31 -0800: "Peter T. Daniels" > <grammatim@verizon.net>: in sci.lang: [quoted text clipped - 16 lines] > minutes, then 36 for 20 seconds and them 35 again, for 10 minutes. And > so on adn so on. What a busy social life such a person must have. More realistic is some degree of diglossia. > >> It only becomes more convincing by that change. > > > >A big problem is that you skipped Linguistics 101! > > Your problem is that you live in an ivory tower of nice theories and > refuse to face real life linguistic problems. You apparently seem unwilling to face real life linguistic data. > >> It is, and I am fully aware of that, especially because I sometimes > >> translate English written by Frenchmen or Germans, who tend to use it [quoted text clipped - 6 lines] > > Do you? How does a transition like the above take place in your view? Labov has written two rather large books on the topic, with a third on the way. I summarized the process above and below. > >_Why_ do you suppose > >Labov does all his nationwide phonetic sampling? It's how you observe a [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] > > That only support my view and contradicts yours. Then you have failed to understand what I wrote. > >The children of the people with the new system don't ever encounter the > >old system [quoted text clipped - 6 lines] > But gradually, which is the point. So there is a transition period > (whch can take many many years) in which you just cannot tell. Why do you refuse to accept that "la langue est un syst`eme o`u tout se tient" (Saussure), while recognizing that "All grammars leak" (Sapir)? 31 Dec 2006 13:11:27 -0800: "Peter T. Daniels" <grammatim@verizon.net>: in sci.lang: >Why do you refuse to accept that "la langue est un syst`eme o`u tout se >tient" (Saussure), while recognizing that "All grammars leak" (Sapir)? Riddles won't make you right. Happy new year to all!! SignatureRuud Harmsen - http://rudhar.com De valkuilen van ons denken: http://www.skepsis.nl/valkuilen.html > "The idiolects are always perfectly distinct? Any speaker only ever > speaks one and the same idiolect?" You snipped the part where Peter said "at any particular time and social situation". People constantly change their speech according to the company they are in, but in that situation, they will stick to what they think the pattern is supposed to be. SignatureRob Bannister > > "The idiolects are always perfectly distinct? Any speaker only ever > > speaks one and the same idiolect?" [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] > to the company they are in, but in that situation, they will stick to > what they think the pattern is supposed to be. Rather, what they _know_ it to be -- if people were _thinking_ about what accent to use in a particular situation, they'd never manage to _say_ anything! 1 Jan 2007 08:36:51 -0800: "Peter T. Daniels" <grammatim@verizon.net>: in sci.lang: >> > "The idiolects are always perfectly distinct? Any speaker only ever >> > speaks one and the same idiolect?" [quoted text clipped - 7 lines] >what accent to use in a particular situation, they'd never manage to >_say_ anything! True, in usual situation, although some people do conciously switch accents _and_ talk a lot. SignatureRuud Harmsen - http://rudhar.com >>>"The idiolects are always perfectly distinct? Any speaker only ever >>>speaks one and the same idiolect?" [quoted text clipped - 7 lines] > what accent to use in a particular situation, they'd never manage to > _say_ anything! What I had in mind was a conscious adoption of an accent. What frequently happens is, the speaker makes a wholesale change (in English, usually of vowels), but the effect can be like doing global find & replace with a word processor and cause strange results. My father, coming from the north of England, switched to southern English by changing all his "u"s with odd results when it came to words like "bush" or "butcher". I'm sure you have heard BrE speakers make a creditable attempt at an American accent, but fail for the similar reasons. SignatureRob Bannister > >>>"The idiolects are always perfectly distinct? Any speaker only ever > >>>speaks one and the same idiolect?" [quoted text clipped - 16 lines] > or "butcher". I'm sure you have heard BrE speakers make a creditable > attempt at an American accent, but fail for the similar reasons. All too familiar. The first step in accent neutralization is identifying what to leave unchanged. What should have been left unchanged can, however, be identified at a later stage too; did your father continue saying [bu"C] and [bu"tS@] for the rest of his life or did he revert to his originals of these? 1 Jan 2007 15:58:39 -0800: "ranjit_mathews@yahoo.com" <ranjit_mathews@yahoo.com>: in sci.lang: >All too familiar. The first step in accent neutralization is >identifying what to leave unchanged. What should have been left >unchanged can, however, be identified at a later stage too; did your >father continue saying [bu"C] and [bu"tS@] for the rest of his life or >did he revert to his originals of these? I expect he said [bVS] and [bVtS@], to avoid his native [bo<unr>] (with V in the English sense, not the IPA sense). SignatureRuud Harmsen - http://rudhar.com > All too familiar. The first step in accent neutralization is > identifying what to leave unchanged. What should have been left > unchanged can, however, be identified at a later stage too; did your > father continue saying [bu"C] and [bu"tS@] for the rest of his life or > did he revert to his originals of these? No, he kept on saying "bVS". Of course, it wasn't quite that: the northern u, which we southerners hear as "oo", is - I can't transcribe it, but it's sort of halfway between, so I suppose he might have been using a version of his original. SignatureRob Bannister > >>>"The idiolects are always perfectly distinct? Any speaker only ever > >>>speaks one and the same idiolect?" [quoted text clipped - 16 lines] > or "butcher". I'm sure you have heard BrE speakers make a creditable > attempt at an American accent, but fail for the similar reasons. Like I said ... conscious adoptions, no good. Tue, 02 Jan 2007 07:42:33 +0800: Robert Bannister <robban@it.net.au>: in sci.lang: >What I had in mind was a conscious adoption of an accent. What >frequently happens is, the speaker makes a wholesale change (in English, [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] >changing all his "u"s with odd results when it came to words like "bush" >or "butcher". Yes. But (stressed) and put rhyme in Northern-England, elsewhere they don't. They never too the change that elsewhere happened in most words, but not in all.. >I'm sure you have heard BrE speakers make a creditable >attempt at an American accent, but fail for the similar reasons. Or me changing all Dutch <ui> to <uu> imitating some eastern dialect, and failing horribly too. SignatureRuud Harmsen - http://rudhar.com > Sat, 30 Dec 2006 13:56:28 -0500: Nathan Sanders > <nsanders@williams.edu>: in sci.lang: [quoted text clipped - 10 lines] > there is no 'maybe' in between. No "twijfelfonemen" as I call them in > Dutch, "doubted phonemes". As Peter said, what makes them marginal is whether every speaker has them or not. If some speakers do and some don't, then it's marginal for the language, but for a given speaker's idiolect, no phoneme is marginal. Either the speaker has the phonemic distinction or they do not. Whether they *make* that distinction in every single utterance is a different matter. The phoneme is an abstract concept, defined by a speaker's competence, and their actual performance can (and will) deviate from the theoretical ideal. But this doesn't change the fact that this theoretical ideal exists and is usually expressed (without effort). Nathan SignatureNathan Sanders Linguistics Program Williams College http://wso.williams.edu/~nsanders/ -- Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com Sun, 31 Dec 2006 20:21:36 -0500: Nathan Sanders <nsanders@williams.edu>: in sci.lang: >As Peter said, what makes them marginal is whether every speaker has >them or not. If some speakers do and some don't, then it's marginal >for the language, but for a given speaker's idiolect, no phoneme is >marginal. Either the speaker has the phonemic distinction or they do >not. I think that too is theory, which doesn't always pass the test of reality. E.g. it is doubtful if /G/ and /X/ are separate phonemes in Dutch, or allophones of a single. Some people say they don't make the distinction, although when I listen to them, I hear them do it just like I do myself. But even when I tell them that, it doesn't convince them. Obviously my parents make/made the distinction too, and so did my peers. Yet, some words which the spelling suggests should have /G/, in my speech have /X/, viz. logica and logisch. Interference with loochenen? In 'gelogen', I have /G/ the second time, but a variant the is close to but not equal to /X/ in initial position. Minimal pairs are hard to find, but they do exist. So what is the phoneme analysis of my personal ideolect? >Whether they *make* that distinction in every single utterance is a >different matter. The phoneme is an abstract concept, defined by a >speaker's competence, and their actual performance can (and will) >deviate from the theoretical ideal. But this doesn't change the fact >that this theoretical ideal exists and is usually expressed (without >effort). So how do you explain that I, as I explained, hear people make phonemic distinctions that they deny they can make, nor hear? Phonemic theories are nice, but they aren't always applicable in practice. Similar to the /G/-/X/ distinctions, /s/-/z/ and /f/-/v/ are weak ut existant too. Despite that, an initial /s/ in <zestig> (written with <z>!) survives as distinguished from <zestien> with a /z/. This is due to assilimation to a <t> prefix, which _itself disappeared hundreds of years ago_. How is such a thing possible within current phonemic theories? SignatureRuud Harmsen - http://rudhar.com De valkuilen van ons denken: http://www.skepsis.nl/valkuilen.html > Sun, 31 Dec 2006 20:21:36 -0500: Nathan Sanders > <nsanders@williams.edu>: in sci.lang: > Obviously my parents make/made the distinction too, and so did my > peers. Yet, some words which the spelling suggests should have /G/, in [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] > > So what is the phoneme analysis of my personal ideolect? Can it depend on the listener? What if (1) he can't hear a difference you can or (2) if he hears a difference you're unaware of? When I listen to a Francophone say "Claude" and "eau", I hear "clawed" and "oh" which seem likely to be two different o phonemes, so I'd transcribe them as /klO:d/ and /o:/ until I can tell whether they are allophones or until I can measure them with some gizmo that can tell whether it's my imagination that they're different. > Similar to the /G/-/X/ distinctions, /s/-/z/ and /f/-/v/ are weak ut > existant too. Despite that, an initial /s/ in <zestig> (written with > <z>!) survives as distinguished from <zestien> with a /z/. This is due > to assilimation to a <t> prefix, which _itself disappeared hundreds of > years ago_. How is such a thing possible within current phonemic > theories? I heard a trace of the former g in the y in Osman Hamdi Bey's name pronounced by a Turk; it might be because I heard it pronounced before I saw it spelt that I noticed the difference from the regular y. I'm not sure I can even remember exactly how it sounded; I do remember being startled when I saw the spelling - I had expected to see something like beg/beyg with a breve on the g. It can only explained by saying that a trace of the original sound was handed down orally/ aurally (from grownup mouth to infant ear) over the generations, even without speakers being aware of the retention of some of the original sound. > Sun, 31 Dec 2006 20:21:36 -0500: Nathan Sanders > <nsanders@williams.edu>: in sci.lang: [quoted text clipped - 19 lines] > > Minimal pairs are hard to find, but they do exist. Then why are you even bothering to ask? /T/ vs. /D/ in English has a very, very low functional load, but no one would suggest they're not two different phonemes in English. > So what is the phoneme analysis of my personal ideolect? Which one? The one where you're being careful to make a distinction, the one you had six months ago, or the one you'll have ten years from now? The one where you've returned to your home village, or the one where you're trying to impress a prospective employwer? > >Whether they *make* that distinction in every single utterance is a > >different matter. The phoneme is an abstract concept, defined by a [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] > So how do you explain that I, as I explained, hear people make > phonemic distinctions that they deny they can make, nor hear? The people are not _making_ a phonemic distinction. You are _hearing_ two different phones as different phonemes, even though they're not -- just like me and Garrison Keillor. > Phonemic theories are nice, but they aren't always applicable in > practice. They are always applicable in practice. > Similar to the /G/-/X/ distinctions, /s/-/z/ and /f/-/v/ are weak ut > existant too. Despite that, an initial /s/ in <zestig> (written with > <z>!) survives as distinguished from <zestien> with a /z/. This is due > to assilimation to a <t> prefix, which _itself disappeared hundreds of > years ago_. How is such a thing possible within current phonemic > theories? History and orthography are irrelevant. If you pronounced <zestig> with /z/ or <zestien with /s/, and people thought you'd made a mistake (not that you had a funny accent), then you'd know the phonemic distinction exists as described. RH: >> So what is the phoneme analysis of my personal ideolect? 1 Jan 2007 08:44:37 -0800: "Peter T. Daniels" <grammatim@verizon.net>: in sci.lang: >Which one? The one where you're being careful to make a distinction, >the one you had six months ago, or the one you'll have ten years from >now? The one where you've returned to your home village, or the one >where you're trying to impress a prospective employwer? Earlier: RH: >> Yes. So in a language that is the transition phase from having, say 35 >> phonemes to having 36, a single speaker has 35 phonemes for two >> minutes, then 36 for 20 seconds and them 35 again, for 10 minutes. And >> so on adn so on. PTD: >What a busy social life such a person must have. When I say this, you say that. When I say that, you say this. >The people are not _making_ a phonemic distinction. You are _hearing_ >two different phones as different phonemes, even though they're not -- >just like me and Garrison Keillor. I don't understand. And who's Garrison Keillor? Am I supposed to know him? >> Phonemic theories are nice, but they aren't always applicable in >> practice. > >They are always applicable in practice. Sometimes with indefinite results. Too close to call. >> Similar to the /G/-/X/ distinctions, /s/-/z/ and /f/-/v/ are weak ut >> existant too. Despite that, an initial /s/ in <zestig> (written with [quoted text clipped - 8 lines] >thought you'd made a mistake (not that you had a funny accent), then >you'd know the phonemic distinction exists as described. Some people do pronounce it that way, and _I_ think they make a mistake, but they themselves, and also some others, don't. SignatureRuud Harmsen - http://rudhar.com > RH: > >> So what is the phoneme analysis of my personal ideolect? [quoted text clipped - 19 lines] > When I say this, you say that. > When I say that, you say this. Why don't you read more carefully, and learn the differences between the this's and the that's? Between langue and parole? > >The people are not _making_ a phonemic distinction. You are _hearing_ > >two different phones as different phonemes, even though they're not -- > >just like me and Garrison Keillor. > > I don't understand. All together now: That's because you don't understand what "phoneme" means. > And who's Garrison Keillor? Am I supposed to know > him? You sure had enough to say in the thread discussing his data. > >> Phonemic theories are nice, but they aren't always applicable in > >> practice. > > > >They are always applicable in practice. > > Sometimes with indefinite results. Too close to call. Never. > >> Similar to the /G/-/X/ distinctions, /s/-/z/ and /f/-/v/ are weak ut > >> existant too. Despite that, an initial /s/ in <zestig> (written with [quoted text clipped - 11 lines] > Some people do pronounce it that way, and _I_ think they make a > mistake, but they themselves, and also some others, don't. Then you are wrong, and they are right. And, of course, they think you make a mistake when you do it your way. >> >> Phonemic theories are nice, but they aren't always applicable in >> >> practice. >> > >> >They are always applicable in practice. >> >> Sometimes with indefinite results. Too close to call. 1 Jan 2007 13:29:21 -0800: "Peter T. Daniels" <grammatim@verizon.net>: in sci.lang: >Never. Dream on. >> Some people do pronounce it that way, and _I_ think they make a >> mistake, but they themselves, and also some others, don't. > >Then you are wrong, and they are right. Are they? Situation: A newsreader whose own underlying accent has [s] throughout. Mainstream Dutch has /zEstin/ and /sEst@X/, but the spelling has <z> in both. Newsreader trying to speak mainstream Dutch uses /z/ in both. Is hypercorrection wrong? Is spelling pronounciation wrong? >And, of course, they think you make a mistake when you do it your way. Exactly, and that's why they try to correct MY mistake, but instead make their own. Classic case of hypercorrection. SignatureRuud Harmsen - http://rudhar.com > >> >> Phonemic theories are nice, but they aren't always applicable in > >> >> practice. [quoted text clipped - 8 lines] > > Dream on. Take some elementary classes,. > >> Some people do pronounce it that way, and _I_ think they make a > >> mistake, but they themselves, and also some others, don't. [quoted text clipped - 9 lines] > > Is hypercorrection wrong? Is spelling pronounciation wrong? First of all, I did not say that your _pronunciation_ is wrong and theirs is right; I said that your _judgment_ about their pronunciation is wrong and their _judgment_ about your pronunciation is right. Hypercorrection is "wrong" because it shows clearly that the speaker does not know the dialect they are attempting to speak, and it makes them look foolish. Spelling pronunciation is wrong. > >And, of course, they think you make a mistake when you do it your way. > > Exactly, and that's why they try to correct MY mistake, but instead > make their own. Classic case of hypercorrection. Then those Dutchies must be very rude -- going around "correcting" each other's speech? 2 Jan 2007 05:49:26 -0800: "Peter T. Daniels" <grammatim@verizon.net>: in sci.lang: >> Dream on. > >Take some elementary classes,. Apply them them to real-life languages, not just English and soem selected Native American languages. >> >> Some people do pronounce it that way, and _I_ think they make a >> >> mistake, but they themselves, and also some others, don't. [quoted text clipped - 13 lines] >theirs is right; I said that your _judgment_ about their pronunciation >is wrong and their _judgment_ about your pronunciation is right. Yes, OK. I may have understood it that way, but if not, I do now. So that means: they make am audible distinction, there is also a difference in meaning, but _they_ insist these two words sound the same. That means there is no phonemic difference, the two words have the same phonemes. Right? Even if the difference is systematic, every time they mean meaning A they use sounds a and when they mean B they say b. >Hypercorrection is "wrong" because it shows clearly that the speaker >does not know the dialect they are attempting to speak, and it makes [quoted text clipped - 7 lines] >Then those Dutchies must be very rude -- going around "correcting" each >other's speech? SignatureRuud Harmsen - http://rudhar.com > 2 Jan 2007 05:49:26 -0800: "Peter T. Daniels" <grammatim@verizon.net>: > in sci.lang: [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] > Apply them them to real-life languages, not just English and soem > selected Native American languages. ? > >> >> Some people do pronounce it that way, and _I_ think they make a > >> >> mistake, but they themselves, and also some others, don't. [quoted text clipped - 22 lines] > time they mean meaning A they use sounds a and when they mean B they > say b. I find that a very implausible scenario. No nonlinguist English-speaker knows about aspirated stops, but a Wisconsinite can identify a non-Wisconsinite because the latter says Wis-consin but the native says Wi-sconsin. But the Wisconsinite doesn't know why they sound like outsiders, and the outsider is oblivious to the difference. 2 Jan 2007 05:49:26 -0800: "Peter T. Daniels" <grammatim@verizon.net>: in sci.lang: >> >And, of course, they think you make a mistake when you do it your way. >> [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] >Then those Dutchies must be very rude -- going around "correcting" each >other's speech? "My mistake" in the sense "the mistake they think they hear from people who talk like me, and are afraid to make themselves too", and "to correct" meaning "correct in their own speech, not that of those other speakers. Like when you silently think "that guy talks funny, I'd never make such a stupid mistake myself, I'll try to avoid it at all cost". But you smile and say nothing about it. SignatureRuud Harmsen - http://rudhar.com > Sun, 31 Dec 2006 20:21:36 -0500: Nathan Sanders > <nsanders@williams.edu>: in sci.lang: [quoted text clipped - 8 lines] > reality. E.g. it is doubtful if /G/ and /X/ are separate phonemes in > Dutch, or allophones of a single. Either there are (potential) (near-)minimal pairs, or there are not. Finding them may be difficult, but if they exist, then the contrastive sounds must belong to separate phonemes. If they are never contrastive, then they *may* be allophones or they may still belong to separate phonemes (for example, English aspirated [ph] and glottalized [?t] are never contrastive, but they still belong to separate phonemes). > Some people say they don't make the > distinction, although when I listen to them, I hear them do it just > like I do myself. But even when I tell them that, it doesn't convince > them. It usually takes some time to convince my students that /N/ is a phoneme in English, because they are too wedded to orthography and think they are really saying [ng]. That doesn't mean /N/ isn't a phoneme, it just means they aren't fully aware of what's going on. This is hardly a surprise --- much of a speaker's language is beyond his conscious awareness. > Obviously my parents make/made the distinction too, and so did my > peers. Yet, some words which the spelling suggests should have /G/, in All that matters for phonemic analysis is the pronunciation. Appealing to spelling is usually an unnecessary complication. Imagine the difficulties you'd run into trying to account for English phonemes by looking at the spelling! You'd end up with some hideous overly complex monstrosity like SPE... > my speech have /X/, viz. logica and logisch. Interference with > loochenen? In 'gelogen', I have /G/ the second time, but a variant the [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] > > So what is the phoneme analysis of my personal ideolect? You have two phonemes /X/ and /G/. Any word you pronounce with [X] uses the phoneme /X/, and any word you pronounces with [G] uses the phoneme /G/ (barring phonological alternations, of course). > Similar to the /G/-/X/ distinctions, /s/-/z/ and /f/-/v/ are weak ut > existant too. Despite that, an initial /s/ in <zestig> (written with > <z>!) survives as distinguished from <zestien> with a /z/. This is due > to assilimation to a <t> prefix, which _itself disappeared hundreds of > years ago_. How is such a thing possible within current phonemic > theories? I don't see the problem: the near-minimal pair here shows pretty clearly that /s/ and /z/ are separate phonemes. Spelling and history are irrelevant for phonemic analysis. Indeed, why *would* we expect spelling and history to matter for descriptions of synchronic pronunciation? Speakers learn the phonemes of their language long before they learn to read (if their language even has a written form!), and the vast majority of speakers have little or no knowledge (conscious or otherwise) of the sound changes in their language's history. Nathan SignatureNathan Sanders Linguistics Program Williams College http://wso.williams.edu/~nsanders/ -- Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com Mon, 01 Jan 2007 12:08:25 -0500: Nathan Sanders <nsanders@williams.edu>: in sci.lang: >It usually takes some time to convince my students that /N/ is a >phoneme in English, because they are too wedded to orthography and >think they are really saying [ng]. Some people in Northern England actually do, by the way. >That doesn't mean /N/ isn't a >phoneme, it just means they aren't fully aware of what's going on. I thought querying native speakers was one way to find out about the phonemes of a language? >This is hardly a surprise --- much of a speaker's language is beyond >his conscious awareness. Right. >> Obviously my parents make/made the distinction too, and so did my >> peers. Yet, some words which the spelling suggests should have /G/, in > >All that matters for phonemic analysis is the pronunciation. Not meaning, to decide what is constrastive? >Appealing to spelling is usually an unnecessary complication. Spelling sometimes reflects past and/or current phonemic distinctions. >Imagine >the difficulties you'd run into trying to account for English phonemes >by looking at the spelling! Lots of languages have a more phonemic spelling than English. >You'd end up with some hideous overly >complex monstrosity like SPE... http://zompist.com/spell.html http://zompist.com/yingzi/yingzi.htm >Indeed, why *would* we expect spelling and history to matter for >descriptions of synchronic pronunciation? Speakers learn the phonemes >of their language long before they learn to read (if their language >even has a written form!), and the vast majority of speakers have >little or no knowledge (conscious or otherwise) of the sound changes >in their language's history. Quite. With the 60/16 problem in Dutch I just don't seem to able to get my point across. Let's leave it at that. SignatureRuud Harmsen - http://rudhar.com > Mon, 01 Jan 2007 12:08:25 -0500: Nathan Sanders > <nsanders@williams.edu>: in sci.lang: [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > > Some people in Northern England actually do, by the way. Most likely, they actually say [Ng], but point noted. However, to the best of my knowledge, out of hundreds of students, I've only had one from Northern England, so I'm pretty certain their resistance to accepting the phonemic status of /N/ had nothing to do with that (or any) dialect. > >That doesn't mean /N/ isn't a > >phoneme, it just means they aren't fully aware of what's going on. > > I thought querying native speakers was one way to find out about the > phonemes of a language? You can't really query them directly about their phonemic knowledge, because they don't even know what a phoneme is. > >> Obviously my parents make/made the distinction too, and so did my > >> peers. Yet, some words which the spelling suggests should have /G/, in > > > >All that matters for phonemic analysis is the pronunciation. > > Not meaning, to decide what is constrastive? The concept of meaning itself is needed, certainly, but actual meanings are not, since the minimal pairs can just be potential words. Any native speaker of English can tell you that [pim] and [bim] are different potential words, but [spim] and [sbim] are not. > >Appealing to spelling is usually an unnecessary complication. > > Spelling sometimes reflects past and/or current phonemic distinctions. And often it doesn't. Minimal pairs don't lie, but spelling can and does. Looking at spelling can occasionally be useful, especially when you are trying to get an initial idea of the phonemic system, but in the long run, across languages, spelling is not reliable, and could even lead you down the wrong path. > >Imagine > >the difficulties you'd run into trying to account for English phonemes > >by looking at the spelling! > > Lots of languages have a more phonemic spelling than English. And lots more have no spelling system at all. And yet, phonemic analysis is possible for such languages, because phonemic analysis does not depend on spelling. Nathan SignatureNathan Sanders Linguistics Program Williams College http://wso.williams.edu/~nsanders/ -- Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com Mon, 01 Jan 2007 13:33:42 -0500: Nathan Sanders <nsanders@williams.edu>: in sci.lang: >> >It usually takes some time to convince my students that /N/ is a >> >phoneme in English, because they are too wedded to orthography and [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] > >Most likely, they actually say [Ng], but point noted. Yes, of course, sorry. >> >All that matters for phonemic analysis is the pronunciation. >> [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] >Any native speaker of English can tell you that [pim] and [bim] are >different potential words, but [spim] and [sbim] are not. OK. So for minimal pair too, words that could have words in the language in question, but just do not happen to exist, are also acceptable? That new to me. But it opens some doors. So where in Dutch I have the non-minimal pair <vlaggen>/<lachen>, I could strengten the proof by stating that <vlachen> and <laggen> could have been words too? (In fact, <lagen> is a word. And <raggen> is too.) >> >Appealing to spelling is usually an unnecessary complication. >> [quoted text clipped - 8 lines] >long run, across languages, spelling is not reliable, and could even >lead you down the wrong path. True. SignatureRuud Harmsen - http://rudhar.com > OK. So for minimal pair too, words that could have words in the > language in question, but just do not happen to exist, are also > acceptable? That new to me. But it opens some doors. In the ideal case, one would only use actual minimal pairs (or better yet, minimal N-tuples for all N contrastive phonemes). But often, we must rely on near-minimal pairs or potential minimal pairs because languages don't use every possible phoneme sequence. The reason we don't always need true minimal pairs is because the focus is on the systematicity of the phonemes. English /T/ and /D/ can both systematically occur at the beginning of words, followed by essentially any vowel. But finding actual minimal pairs is difficult. However, to show systematicity, near-minimal pairs like "thin" and "this" are sufficient (unless it can be shown that /T/ and /D/ are in complementary distribution based on whether they are followed by /In/ or /Is/, but this can be disproven by words like "thistle" and Southern US pronunciations of "then"). Of course, minimal pairs are much stronger evidence because they don't rely on intuitions about possible existence and don't need to ignore (potentially relevant) differences elsewhere in the word (though this isn't usually a problem, because long-distance dependence is rare; e.g., something like [datomepiro] and [ditomelibu] will usually be a "safe" near-minimal pair for /a/-/i/, because it is unlikely that the [piro]/[libu] difference at the end of the word is responsible for the [a]/[i] difference in the first syllable). Nathan SignatureNathan Sanders Linguistics Program Williams College http://wso.williams.edu/~nsanders/ -- Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com > Mon, 01 Jan 2007 13:33:42 -0500: Nathan Sanders > >> Not meaning, to decide what is constrastive? > > [quoted text clipped - 6 lines] > language in question, but just do not happen to exist, are also > acceptable? That new to me. But it opens some doors. It's far, far simpler than that. Meaning is completely irrelevant; all that counts is "same" vs. "different." Linguistics 101. Gleason, *Introduction to Descriptive Linguistics*. 1 Jan 2007 13:35:13 -0800: "Peter T. Daniels" <grammatim@verizon.net>: in sci.lang: >> OK. So for minimal pair too, words that could have words in the >> language in question, but just do not happen to exist, are also >> acceptable? That new to me. But it opens some doors. > >It's far, far simpler than that. Meaning is completely irrelevant; all >that counts is "same" vs. "different." Speaker says same, listener (also a native speaker) says different, also about THEIR utterance. What then? SignatureRuud Harmsen - http://rudhar.com > 1 Jan 2007 13:35:13 -0800: "Peter T. Daniels" <grammatim@verizon.net>: > in sci.lang: [quoted text clipped - 8 lines] > Speaker says same, listener (also a native speaker) says different, > also about THEIR utterance. What then? They have two different phonemic systems, because they have different dialects. Why is this difficult for you? 2 Jan 2007 05:51:10 -0800: "Peter T. Daniels" <grammatim@verizon.net>: in sci.lang: >> 1 Jan 2007 13:35:13 -0800: "Peter T. Daniels" <grammatim@verizon.net>: >> in sci.lang: [quoted text clipped - 11 lines] >They have two different phonemic systems, because they have different >dialects. Why is this difficult for you? Because it means that every single speaker has 10 or 20 different ideolects for himself, and sometimes speaks 4 or 5 of them intermixed in a single sentence. And all those 20 ideolects times the number of speakers of a language are all a bit different. This is of course indeed what reality is like, only it's not very productive and convenient to describe a language at this level of detail. So instead, people group things together, find averages and tendencies shared by many, and that results i.a. in a plausible phoneme model of a language (or dialect or ideolect of sociolect etc.). The consequence of that is that you sometimes have phonemic distinctions that may exist, although it is difficult to decide whether they really hold. Does a biologist describe every single tiger in the world separately, or does he try to determine characteristic features of the species (and possibly subspecies) "tiger"? Nevertheless, every single tiger is different from every other tiger that ever existed. With some animals it is then hard to decide whether they are mammals, e.g. the platypus. It is hard to fit them into the model, that has otherwise proven succesful and useful, and isn't abandoned just because platypuses (platypi?) exist. Aren't the features and characteristics of a subspecies much like the phonemes, grammar rules, words etc. of a language? Some phonemes of some languages are like a platypus. Why is this difficult for you? Cf. the invention of digital techniques versus analog technology. The analog voltage levels like 0,01752 volts and 4,281892 volts still exist even in a digital system, but to limit the effects of noise, interference etc., discrete levels are decided upon. Then using those, details can again be transferred, but in a different way. SignatureRuud Harmsen - http://rudhar.com > 2 Jan 2007 05:51:10 -0800: "Peter T. Daniels" <grammatim@verizon.net>: > in sci.lang: [quoted text clipped - 17 lines] > Because it means that every single speaker has 10 or 20 different > ideolects for himself, <idIolects> probably > and sometimes speaks 4 or 5 of them intermixed unlikely in the extreme > in a single sentence. And all those 20 ideolects times the number of > speakers of a language are all a bit different. No, they're not. > This is of course indeed what reality is like, only it's not very > productive and convenient to describe a language at this level of [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] > distinctions that may exist, although it is difficult to decide > whether they really hold. No, it is not difficult. > Does a biologist describe every single tiger in the world separately, > or does he try to determine characteristic features of the species [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] > otherwise proven succesful and useful, and isn't abandoned just > because platypuses (platypi?) exist. It is not hard to fit them into the model. Platypodes have a variety of characteristics that other mammals don't, but they have (of course) the defining characteristics of mammals. Cladistic classification was adapted from language classification (even though linguists don't use the term "cladistics"). > Aren't the features and characteristics of a subspecies much like the > phonemes, grammar rules, words etc. of a language? > > Some phonemes of some languages are like a platypus. > > Why is this difficult for you? Because your question above makes no sense, and because your comparison below is inapt. > Cf. the invention of digital techniques versus analog technology. The > analog voltage levels like 0,01752 volts and 4,281892 volts still > exist even in a digital system, but to limit the effects of noise, > interference etc., discrete levels are decided upon. Then using those, > details can again be transferred, but in a different way. Yes, analog is allophones and digital is phonemes. That has no bearing whatsoever on whatever it is you're trying to talk about. On Mon, 01 Jan 2007 12:08:25 -0500, Nathan Sanders <nsanders@williams.edu> wrote in <news:nsanders-C99B14.12082501012007@free.teranews.com> in alt.usage.english,sci.lang: [...] > If they are never contrastive, then they *may* be allophones or they > may still belong to separate phonemes (for example, English aspirated > [ph] and glottalized [?t] are never contrastive, but they still belong > to separate phonemes). Those who use [?t] always have [?p] or unreleased [p] in the corresponding positions? [...] Brian Mon, 1 Jan 2007 13:09:29 -0500: "Brian M. Scott" <b.scott@csuohio.edu>: in sci.lang: >On Mon, 01 Jan 2007 12:08:25 -0500, Nathan Sanders ><nsanders@williams.edu> wrote in [quoted text clipped - 10 lines] >Those who use [?t] always have [?p] or unreleased [p] in the >corresponding positions? Or [ph] is always initial (before a vowel, and itself not preceded by [s] in the same syllable), while [?t} etc. are always syllable final? SignatureRuud Harmsen - http://rudhar.com On Mon, 01 Jan 2007 19:26:16 +0100, Ruud Harmsen <realemailonsite@rudhar.com.invalid> wrote in <news:3gkip2pkhqmirs0pcab2o9tfvoo1ihm5bi@4ax.com> in alt.usage.english,sci.lang: > Mon, 1 Jan 2007 13:09:29 -0500: "Brian M. Scott" > <b.scott@csuohio.edu>: in sci.lang: >>On Mon, 01 Jan 2007 12:08:25 -0500, Nathan Sanders >><nsanders@williams.edu> wrote in >><news:nsanders-C99B14.12082501012007@free.teranews.com> in >>alt.usage.english,sci.lang: >>[...] >>> If they are never contrastive, then they *may* be allophones or they >>> may still belong to separate phonemes (for example, English aspirated >>> [ph] and glottalized [?t] are never contrastive, but they still belong >>> to separate phonemes). >>Those who use [?t] always have [?p] or unreleased [p] in the >>corresponding positions? > Or [ph] is always initial [...] It isn't, obviously, or I wouldn't have asked. [...] Brian Mon, 1 Jan 2007 13:48:06 -0500: "Brian M. Scott" <b.scott@csuohio.edu>: in sci.lang: >>>> If they are never contrastive, then they *may* be allophones or they >>>> may still belong to separate phonemes (for example, English aspirated [quoted text clipped - 7 lines] > >It isn't, obviously, or I wouldn't have asked. Happy? Pretty? How do glottalizing Brits say the former? SignatureRuud Harmsen - http://rudhar.com > On Mon, 01 Jan 2007 19:26:16 +0100, Ruud Harmsen > <realemailonsite@rudhar.com.invalid> wrote in [quoted text clipped - 22 lines] > > It isn't, obviously, or I wouldn't have asked. Which environment do you think [ph] and [?t] can both occur in? In the dialects of English I'm aware of, aspirated plosives only occur at the beginnings of words and of stressed syllables, while glottalized plosives never occur in those environments. Nathan SignatureNathan Sanders Linguistics Program Williams College http://wso.williams.edu/~nsanders/ -- Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com Mon, 01 Jan 2007 13:55:52 -0500: Nathan Sanders <nsanders@williams.edu>: in sci.lang: >> >>Those who use [?t] always have [?p] or unreleased [p] in the >> >>corresponding positions? [quoted text clipped - 7 lines] >the beginnings of words and of stressed syllables, while glottalized >plosives never occur in those environments. Let me see, in <take> the t is aspirated, in <stake> it isn't. But what about words like 'better' (in accents that don't have a flap there? SignatureRuud Harmsen - http://rudhar.com > Mon, 01 Jan 2007 13:55:52 -0500: Nathan Sanders > <nsanders@williams.edu>: in sci.lang: [quoted text clipped - 12 lines] > > Let me see, in <take> the t is aspirated, in <stake> it isn't. Right. The first /t/ is word-initial, the second is not (the /s/ is word-initial there). > But > what about words like 'better' (in accents that don't have a flap > there? Other than the gottalizing ones, I don't know of any. Are there any dialects with aspiration there? Nathan SignatureNathan Sanders Linguistics Program Williams College http://wso.williams.edu/~nsanders/ -- Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com Mon, 01 Jan 2007 14:40:22 -0500: Nathan Sanders <nsanders@williams.edu>: in sci.lang: >> But >> what about words like 'better' (in accents that don't have a flap >> there? > >Other than the gottalizing ones, I don't know of any. Are there any >dialects with aspiration there? Fully glottalizing an intervocalic /t/ happens, in London for example, but it is considered a very broad accent. Many will fully or partially glottalize in "bets are off" but not in "better". Whether they then aspirate I don't know. They do realise the t backer than I do in Dutch, which I may confuse with aspiration. Aspiration of stops in English is probably a weak spot in my own accent (I "forget" doing it where it's needed), so I'm not the right person to judge this. Any of our local SBrit speakers? SignatureRuud Harmsen - http://rudhar.com >> Mon, 01 Jan 2007 13:55:52 -0500: Nathan Sanders >> <nsanders@williams.edu>: in sci.lang: [quoted text clipped - 20 lines] > > Nathan You're asking whether there are accents that aspirate the /t/ in 'better'? In various parts of England it's aspirated so strongly that it shades over into affrication. Colin On Mon, 01 Jan 2007 13:55:52 -0500, Nathan Sanders <nsanders@williams.edu> wrote in <news:nsanders-0DE97C.13555201012007@free.teranews.com> in alt.usage.english,sci.lang: >> On Mon, 01 Jan 2007 19:26:16 +0100, Ruud Harmsen >> <realemailonsite@rudhar.com.invalid> wrote in >> <news:3gkip2pkhqmirs0pcab2o9tfvoo1ihm5bi@4ax.com> in >> alt.usage.english,sci.lang: >>> Mon, 1 Jan 2007 13:09:29 -0500: "Brian M. Scott" >>> <b.scott@csuohio.edu>: in sci.lang: >>>>On Mon, 01 Jan 2007 12:08:25 -0500, Nathan Sanders >>>><nsanders@williams.edu> wrote in >>>><news:nsanders-C99B14.12082501012007@free.teranews.com> in >>>>alt.usage.english,sci.lang: >>>>[...] >>>>> If they are never contrastive, then they *may* be allophones or they >>>>> may still belong to separate phonemes (for example, English aspirated >>>>> [ph] and glottalized [?t] are never contrastive, but they still belong >>>>> to separate phonemes). >>>>Those who use [?t] always have [?p] or unreleased [p] in the >>>>corresponding positions? >>> Or [ph] is always initial [...] >> It isn't, obviously, or I wouldn't have asked. > Which environment do you think [ph] and [?t] can both occur in? Word finally, of course; that's why I mentioned 'unreleased [p]'. Most often but not quite exclusively at the end of an utterance. [...] Brian > On Mon, 01 Jan 2007 13:55:52 -0500, Nathan Sanders > <nsanders@williams.edu> wrote in [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > [p]'. Most often but not quite exclusively at the end of an > utterance. Which dialects of English have word-final [ph] and [?t] (and of obviously, don't have word-final [th] and [?p])? Nathan SignatureNathan Sanders Linguistics Program Williams College http://wso.williams.edu/~nsanders/ -- Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com Mon, 01 Jan 2007 03:00:43 +0100: Ruud Harmsen <realemailonsite@rudhar.com.invalid>: in sci.lang: >Despite that, an initial /s/ in <zestig> (written with ><z>!) survives as distinguished from <zestien> with a /z/. This is due >to assilimation to a <t> prefix, which _itself disappeared hundreds of >years ago_. How is such a thing possible within current phonemic >theories? One more attempt to make it clear what I mean. Regardless whether or not /s/ vs. /z/ is phonemic in anyone's Dutch, the fact is that the constrastive load is small: there are so few minimal pairs, and the ones that exist are so infrequent, that not making the distinction is very unlikely to ever cause any misunderstanding. Indeed some people use [s] everywhere, but they are a minority. They are however understood without any difficulty. So if the difference makes so little difference, why wasn't it evened out for everybody? And why does it survive in a situation where is was originally just an allophone caused by assimilation, by something that itself is no longer present? I'd expect that only distinctions would survive that are necessary to maintain a minimally sufficient level of understandability (allowing for some redundancy to accomodate noise of course). Instead we see that some extra distinctions survive that aren't needed at all. Why? SignatureRuud Harmsen - http://rudhar.com > Regardless whether or not /s/ vs. /z/ is phonemic in anyone's Dutch, > the fact is that the constrastive load is small: there are so few > minimal pairs, and the ones that exist are so infrequent, that not > making the distinction is very unlikely to ever cause any > misunderstanding. Similarly for English 3rd-person singular present tense -s. There are so few cases where it's needed to preserve a contrast in plurality (primarily just cases with irregular plurals, like "the fish sleep(s)"), so there would almost never be any misunderstanding if we left the verb unmarked (as is done in some dialects). But most dialects of English continue to do it anyway. > So if the difference makes so little difference, why wasn't it evened > out for everybody? And why does it survive in a situation where is was > originally just an allophone caused by assimilation, by something that > itself is no longer present? The same reason human beings have a coccyx, an appendix, and wisdom teeth: inertial continuity between evolutionary stages of development. It takes time for a change to become completed (and in the meanwhile, the motivation for that change may even be lost). > I'd expect that only distinctions would survive that are necessary to > maintain a minimally sufficient level of understandability (allowing > for some redundancy to accomodate noise of course). > Instead we see that some extra distinctions survive that aren't needed > at all. Why? For all we know, the /s/-/z/ contrast might be on its way to being eliminated, and you are in the midst of a sound change in progress. Give it a hundred years or so, and it may very well be completely gone. Or not. Dutch speakers just may not ever find it all that strenuous to keep an extra phoneme around. Nathan SignatureNathan Sanders Linguistics Program Williams College http://wso.williams.edu/~nsanders/ -- Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com Mon, 01 Jan 2007 14:23:32 -0500: Nathan Sanders <nsanders@williams.edu>: in sci.lang: >> So if the difference makes so little difference, why wasn't it evened >> out for everybody? And why does it survive in a situation where is was [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] >It takes time for a change to become completed (and in the meanwhile, >the motivation for that change may even be lost). Yes, good explanation. >> I'd expect that only distinctions would survive that are necessary to >> maintain a minimally sufficient level of understandability (allowing [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] >For all we know, the /s/-/z/ contrast might be on its way to being >eliminated, and you are in the midst of a sound change in progress. Spelling (there we go again) 300 or 400 years ago indicates the distinction was weak already then. >Give it a hundred years or so, and it may very well be completely >gone. Not what I expect. But possible. >Or not. Dutch speakers just may not ever find it all that >strenuous to keep an extra phoneme around. SignatureRuud Harmsen - http://rudhar.com > >> OK, accepted. So the spelling is misleading, and y (bI) and i (N) are > >> really one vowel. [quoted text clipped - 18 lines] > (Инга). > Alec I am still a bit surprised by this. Are you people saying that the linguists, including the Russian linguists, regard the vowel in the words <бить> (to hit) and <быть> (to be) as the same phoneme? Paul JK > I am still a bit surprised by this. Are you people saying that > the linguists, including the Russian linguists, regard the vowel > in the words <ÑØâì> (to hit) and <Ñëâì> (to be) as the same > phoneme? Yes. Russian already has a phonemic contrast between palatalized and non-palatalized consonants. Adding an extra vowel phoneme /1/ doesn't change this fact. That is, even with an analysis containing phonemic /1/, we still need a phonemic contrast in consonant palatalization as well. But if [1] is treated only as an allophone of /i/ that appears after non-palatalized consonants, then the overall analysis accounts for exactly the same facts, but with fewer phonemes. Occam's razor tells us that the simpler analysis is preferable. (This is ignoring the recent loanwords mentioned elsewhere in the thread; these words indicate that [1] is becoming phonemic.) This analysis also better explains the phonetic reality, which is that [1] isn't really a pure vowel, but more of a diphthong, transitioning from back/central [1] to front [i], which is what we would expect if, as in Irish, non-palatalized consonants are actually velarized (which provides a better perceptual contrast with palatalized consonants), and if the target vowel is in fact [i] (a reasonable default target if the phoneme is /i/). The paper I provided a link to explains all of this better and in more detail. Nathan SignatureNathan Sanders Linguistics Program Williams College http://wso.williams.edu/~nsanders/ -- Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com > > I am still a bit surprised by this. Are you people saying that > > the linguists, including the Russian linguists, regard the vowel > > in the words <ÑØâì> (to hit) and <Ñëâì> (to be) as the same > > phoneme? I've tried UTF-8, ISO 8859-15, Cyrillic and East European encodings and still can't make sense of what's in <>. What gives? > Yes. > [quoted text clipped - 14 lines] > [1] isn't really a pure vowel, but more of a diphthong, transitioning > from back/central [1] to front [i] BTW (i.e., no response expected), it's like the [ui] diphthong Indians perceive in [we]; I once listened to an Indian professor asking his mostly American students to excuse his Indian accent and explaining that whereas Americans said [B@] followed by [ui], Indians pronounced it as [B@] followed by [i:]. (By [B@], he meant [B], of course.) >, which is what we would expect if, > as in Irish, non-palatalized consonants are actually velarized (which [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > The paper I provided a link to explains all of this better and in more > detail. I was most interesting; thanks; I was able to notice a diphthong [i"i] after [b~]. On 31 Dec 2006 10:01:54 -0800, "ranjit_mathews@yahoo.com" in alt.usage.english,sci.lang: >>> I am still a bit surprised by this. Are you people saying that >>> the linguists, including the Russian linguists, regard the vowel >>> in the words <ÑØâì> (to hit) and <Ñëâì> (to be) as the same >>> phoneme? > I've tried UTF-8, ISO 8859-15, Cyrillic and East European encodings and > still can't make sense of what's in <>. What gives? Look at Paul's headers: it's ISO-8859-5. (The words are <bit'> and <byt'>, respectively.) [...] Brian > <ranjit_mathews@yahoo.com> wrote > in alt.usage.english,sci.lang: [quoted text clipped - 8 lines] > > Look at Paul's headers: it's ISO-8859-5. Then, something is broken in Firefox on Linux 'coz I tried that. It's not a lack of Cyrillic fonts since a font viewing utility shows them. > (The words are <bit'> and <byt'>, respectively.) Thanks. > [...] > > Brian > > <ranjit_mathews@yahoo.com> wrote > > in alt.usage.english,sci.lang: [quoted text clipped - 15 lines] > > Thanks. Dusan's Russian shows up just fine for me (as does Jamshid's Arabic, albeit too small to read), but Paul's Russian doesn't. On 31 Dec 2006 13:13:13 -0800, "Peter T. Daniels" <grammatim@verizon.net> wrote in <news:1167599593.895548.177730@n51g2000cwc.googlegroups.com> in alt.usage.english,sci.lang: [...] > Dusan's Russian shows up just fine for me (as does > Jamshid's Arabic, albeit too small to read), but Paul's > Russian doesn't. Paul's Russian showed up fine for me in the original: his header was honest, and Dialog correctly interpreted it. Nathan's news client didn't generate a Content-Type header, so Ranjit's interpreted it as ISO-8859-1 and generated a header that specified that charset. Dialog correctly copied that when I responded to him. Brian >ranjit_mathews@yahoo.com wrote:> > Brian M. Scott wrote:> [quoted text clipped - 20 lines] >Dusan's Russian shows up just fine for me (as does Jamshid's Arabic, >albeit too small to read), but Paul's Russian doesn't. I just posted what I think happened. I too get gobbledygook displayed when re-read it from the web. To see it displayed correctly in my Outlook Express I have to go to View, Encoding, and select Cyrillic(ISO), which is I guess MSOutlookese for ISO-8859-5. (people with OutlookExpress may find that useful to know) pjk >> <ranjit_mathews@yahoo.com> wrote >> in alt.usage.english,sci.lang: [quoted text clipped - 9 lines] > Then, something is broken in Firefox on Linux 'coz I tried that. It's > not a lack of Cyrillic fonts since a font viewing utility shows them. It certainly isn't. I saw Paul's Cyrillic, but its been garbageated in your quoting. Colin > On 31 Dec 2006 10:01:54 -0800, "ranjit_mathews@yahoo.com" > in alt.usage.english,sci.lang: [quoted text clipped - 13 lines] > > Brian Sorry about that everybody. Whenever I include any Cyrillics I usually force encoding format into UTF-8 just before I post it. After I've forced UTF-8 that time I must have copied and pasted the <бить> and <быть> from an ISO-8859-5 source and then posted it. The good old MS Outlook decided to change the format of the whole post. Let's see if it works now. I force UTF-8 and post it straight after.... pjk >>>I am still a bit surprised by this. Are you people saying that >>>the linguists, including the Russian linguists, regard the vowel [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] > I've tried UTF-8, ISO 8859-15, Cyrillic and East European encodings and > still can't make sense of what's in <>. What gives? Try ISO 8859-5. SignatureRob Bannister On Fri, 29 Dec 2006 17:49:34 -0500, Nathan Sanders <nsanders@williams.edu> wrote in <news:nsanders-1F5D77.17493429122006@free.teranews.com> in alt.usage.english,sci.lang: [...] >> Does Russian have palatalized and non-palatalized >> consonants, or does it have palatalizing and >> non-palatalizing vowels? >> Same question for Irish and Scots Gaelic. > Russian (I don't know about Gaelic) has a robust contrast > between palatalized and plain consonants both before and > after vowels, so shifting the burden of palatalization > to vowels would require four types of vowels > (non-palatilizing, pre-palatalizing, post-palatalizing, > and double palatalizing). Irish contrasts palatalized and velarized consonants, and the choice isn't determined by the surrounding vowels; there are even at least some minimal pairs. (The *orthography* indicates palatalization/velarization by the way the vowels are written, but that's also true of Russian.) [...] Brian > 29 Dec 2006 14:30:48 -0800: "Peter T. Daniels" > <grammatim@verizon.net>: in sci.lang: [quoted text clipped - 9 lines] > Does Russian have palatalized and non-palatalized consonants, or does > it have palatalizing and non-palatalizing vowels? ISTR that soft-sign and yotated vowels are not in complementary distribution, so presumably it has both. > Same question for Irish and Scots Gaelic. > > Of course you have a failsafe method to decide between the two, > although you refuse to explain it in simple terms so that everybody > can understand it? Were you absent on the days that I mentioned that different phonologists can create different, equaly valid phonological analyses of the same data? For instance, British phonologists focus on vowel length, American phonologists on vowel quality in analyzing English. > Please prove me wrong, and I'll admit. But explain in simple wording, > without any references to learned books and "scientific" theories. If you think that Russian, Irish, or Gaelic fulfills the conditions for Ranjit's suggestion, then present your data and analysis in such a way that a person who does not know Russian, Irish, or Gaelic can follow the argument. 29 Dec 2006 14:51:37 -0800: "Peter T. Daniels" <grammatim@verizon.net>: in sci.lang: >> 29 Dec 2006 14:30:48 -0800: "Peter T. Daniels" >> <grammatim@verizon.net>: in sci.lang: [quoted text clipped - 11 lines] > >ISTR What ISTR? >hat soft-sign and yotated vowels are not in complementary >distribution, so presumably it has both. Complicated. >> Same question for Irish and Scots Gaelic. >> [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] >phonologists can create different, equaly valid phonological analyses >of the same data? Yes. Mentally absent >For instance, British phonologists focus on vowel >length, American phonologists on vowel quality in analyzing English. Yes, you repeat that when it suits you. But when _I_ suggest two models for the same facts are equally possible, you say it's all wrong. That's inconsistent. >> Please prove me wrong, and I'll admit. But explain in simple wording, >> without any references to learned books and "scientific" theories. [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] >that a person who does not know Russian, Irish, or Gaelic can follow >the argument. I was asking you. SignatureRuud Harmsen - http://rudhar.com > 29 Dec 2006 14:51:37 -0800: "Peter T. Daniels" > <grammatim@verizon.net>: in sci.lang: > >> >The question cannot be addressed until you find a real-world situation > >> >where the question arises. There is _no warrant_ in English for [quoted text clipped - 10 lines] > > What ISTR? Perhaps you are inquiring as to the meaning of ISTR? I Seem To Recall. > >hat soft-sign and yotated vowels are not in complementary > >distribution, so presumably it has both. [quoted text clipped - 19 lines] > models for the same facts are equally possible, you say it's all > wrong. That's inconsistent. Of course both models have to account for all the data equally successfully. > >> Please prove me wrong, and I'll admit. But explain in simple wording, > >> without any references to learned books and "scientific" theories. [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] > > I was asking you. You know perfectly well that I don't know Russian, Irish, or Gaelic, so why did you bother? >> 29 Dec 2006 14:51:37 -0800: "Peter T. Daniels" >> <grammatim@verizon.net>: in sci.lang: [quoted text clipped - 13 lines] > Perhaps you are inquiring as to the meaning of ISTR? I Seem To Recall. > [...] It's nice to see you explaining that kind of abbreviation, Peter. I remember back in 1999, when you came up with "You Make Me Vomit" for "YMMV". SignatureMike Wright http://www.raccoonbend.com > > Perhaps you are inquiring as to the meaning of ISTR? I Seem To Recall. > It's nice to see you explaining that kind of abbreviation, Peter. I > remember back in 1999, when you came up with "You Make Me Vomit" for "YMMV". That's still my initial resolution of it on the infrequent occasions I see it any more. > ... in rhotic English? I can't think of a minimal pair that would > indicate otherwise. Carol, Carl barrow, borrow fallow, follow > > ... in rhotic English? I can't think of a minimal pair that would > > indicate otherwise. > > > Carol, Carl > barrow, borrow > fallow, follow Or, for those who think the second words in the last two pairs are rounded, fatter, fodder, father > > > ... in rhotic English? I can't think of a minimal pair that would > > > indicate otherwise. My /A/ and /A./ are not allophones, so I parse these as ... > > Carol, Carl > > barrow, borrow > > fallow, follow /k&r@l/, /kArl/ /b&ro/, /bA.ro/ /f&lo/,/fA.lo/ > Or, for those who think the second words in the last two pairs are > rounded, > > fatter, fodder, father /f&tr/, /fA.dr/, /fAdr/ >>>> ... in rhotic English? I can't think of a minimal pair that would >>>> indicate otherwise. [quoted text clipped - 6 lines] > > /k&r@l/, /kArl/ I have two syllables in "Carl". I just double checked, saying "Carl Sagan" to myself, and, yep, four syllables. /kAr@l/ > >>>> ... in rhotic English? I can't think of a minimal pair that would > >>>> indicate otherwise. [quoted text clipped - 9 lines] > I have two syllables in "Carl". I just double checked, saying "Carl > Sagan" to myself, and, yep, four syllables. /kAr@l/ Then, your r is not bunched or approximant; it's that other one that's claimed to be retroflex but is actually retroflexed only to a mild degree. A transition from retroflexed r to velarised alveolopalatal l would tend to give an epenthetic @ like you indicate. I have a retroflex r too, but my /l/ too is retroflex in this context, so all I have to do after the [R] approximant is to move the tongue tip less than 1/4 inch upward to close the gap between the tongue and the front of the palate just behind the alveolar ridge, so I have no epenthetic vowel. Now, what I can't figure is why some have a diphthong in Dad. >> I have two syllables in "Carl". I just double checked, saying "Carl >> Sagan" to myself, and, yep, four syllables. /kAr@l/ > > Then, your r is not bunched or approximant; it's that other one that's > claimed to be retroflex but is actually retroflexed only to a mild > degree. That doesn't follow. He may merely have advanced L-vocalization - if the L is sufficiently non-consonantal, it can't fit in the syllable after the R. > Now, what I can't figure is why some have a diphthong in Dad. Sound Change. -Aaron J. 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