 |
 | Home | Contact Us | FAQ | Search & Site Map | Link to Us |
 | Sign In | Join | Other 45 Sites in Network |
| HomeDiscussion GroupsEnglish UsageBritish EnglishESL Teaching Learnglish.com Contact UsLink To UsSearch & Site Map |
Discussion Groups / English Usage / January 2007Vowel reduction driven by length?
If there's vowel reduction with length reduction in all* languages, are the schwas in English a function of the shortness of unstressed syllables? That is, do ESL speakers' unstressed vowels automatically become schwas as they learn to make unstressed syllables shorter or are their schwa pronunciations learned pronunciations to the same extent that length reduction is learned? * Is there a universal impact of duration on formant frequency values of oral vowels? http://aune.lpl.univ-aix.fr/~labphon10/abstracts/248.pdf contrary to expectations, vowel reductions are observed with a comparable degree in 6 languages (French, Spanish, German, European Portuguese, Italian and English). This suggests that reduction is not an exclusively linguistic phenomenon, but admits also explanations of a physical or physiological nature. Variations have also been measured for Arabic and Mandarin although less important > If there's vowel reduction with length reduction in all* languages, are > the schwas in English a function of the shortness of unstressed [quoted text clipped - 16 lines] > nature. Variations have also been measured for Arabic and Mandarin > although less important Not all languages have vowel reduction. In Polish, all vowels are pronounced with exactly the same length, whether stressed or unstressed, and regardless of their position in the word. There are no long or short vowels. As far as I know, Czech is the only Slavic language that has retained distinctions in vowel length at all. Furthermore, all Polish vowels are pronounced exactly the same way every single time (except for nasal e which mostly or entirely loses it nasality at the end of a word). Poles have an extremely difficult time learning to pronounce long, short, and reduced vowels in English. They also cannot grasp the fact that the pronunciation of a vowel varies depending on whether it is long, short or reduced (for example, that the last vowel of rabbit, rivet, maggot and separate (adjective) are pronounced the same). I'm sure that Polish is not unique in this regard, so that the phenomenon you mention is not universal. As to English, a child associates the final vowel of maggot with "o" and the final vowel of separate with "a" only after he learns to read. This causes difficulty even in highly educated adult writers, who often make errors spelling weak sounds, such as "absorbant" instead of "absorbent", "seperate" instead of "separate", or "miniscule" instead of "minuscule". In other words, I don't think that native speakers of English learn to "reduce" vowels in the way you mean at all. Weak vowels are learned as they are, and not as weakened forms of long and short vowels. As a matter of fact, I doubt that any preliterate native user of English even vaguely suspects that the final vowels of rabbit, rivet and maggot are historically derived from different vowels. Unless, perhaps, he speaks a dialect that does not pronounce these vowels the same, and I'm not sure if any such dialect exists. Dominic Bojarski > Furthermore, all Polish vowels are pronounced exactly the same way > every single time This isn't quite true. The front mid vowel is noticeably higher next to palatals than between hard consonants, essentially the difference between [e] and [E]. > (except for nasal e which mostly or entirely loses it > nasality at the end of a word). Not only that, but word-internally, both nasal vowels have different pronunciations depending on the following sound: * when followed by a stop or affricate, they are pronounced as a vowel+nasal stop sequence, with the nasal stop homorganic to the following stop * when they are followed by a continuant, they are pronounced as a vowel+nasal glide sequence, with the glide being nasal [j] before palatals and nasal [w] otherwise But generally, you're right, there is very little variation in the vowels as written, though there is a lot of variation that is reflected in the spelling, such as alternations in paradigms, like róg~rogi, reka~rak, krew~krwi, etc. Nathan  SignatureNathan Sanders Linguistics Program Williams College http://wso.williams.edu/~nsanders/ -- Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com > Furthermore, all Polish vowels are pronounced exactly the same way > every single time (except for nasal e which mostly or entirely loses it [quoted text clipped - 8 lines] > I'm sure that Polish is not unique in this regard, so that the > phenomenon you mention is not universal. The phenomenon I'm asking about is: When Polish people are taught English, is it necessary to teach them to change the quality of their reduced vowels or is it only necessary to teach them to reduce length? That is, if they are taught only to reduce length, would quality reduction automatically follow, thereby making it unnecessary to teach quality reduction? > > Furthermore, all Polish vowels are pronounced exactly the same way > > every single time (except for nasal e which mostly or entirely loses it [quoted text clipped - 17 lines] > reduction automatically follow, thereby making it unnecessary to teach > quality reduction? The answer is absolutely not. They have to be taught to pronounce reduced vowels as if they were new, different vowels that have nothing to do with the letter by which they are represented. They are not taught that reduced vowels are reduced forms of non-reduced vowels. In fact, it is very difficult to convince them that reduced vowels are indeed pronounced differently from they letter by which they are represented. They will try to preserve at all costs a distinction between the final vowel in rabbit, rivet, maggot and separate (adjective). On top of that, they will insist that they hear the difference when native speakers pronounce these words. That's easy enough to understand. When I was learning Polish, I pronounced the pairs ?/u, rz/z and ch/h the same in my minds ear, and still do, in spite of the fact that they are pronounced identically by Poles. I still get the impression that Poles pronounce them subtly different, even though I know that I am wrong. It's an aural illusion caused by familiarity with the written form. Dominic Bojarski > > That is, if they are taught only to reduce length, would quality > > reduction automatically follow, thereby making it unnecessary to teach > > quality reduction? > > They have to be taught to pronounce > reduced vowels as if they were new, Well, one hazard is that if one asks them to converge to a common vowel, there would be oddities of pronunciation like [r&bVt] for "rabbit" or [m&git] for "maggot"; [r&bIt] and [m&got] with short would be preferrable to these. I remember hearing a Japanese professor saying [VpA baUnd] for "upper bound" and thinking that the Indian spelling pronunciation [Vp:Er.] was easier to follow precisely because it was a spelling mispronunciation. > When I was learning Polish, I > pronounced the pairs ó/u, rz/z and ch/h the same in my minds ear, and > still do, in spite of the fact that they are pronounced identically by > Poles. Why did anyone decide to use rz in the first place? Why not just z, br, dz., tsz, etc? > I still get the impression that Poles pronounce them subtly > different, even though I know that I am wrong. It's an aural illusion > caused by familiarity with the written form. I'm not sure that you're completely wrong. If short vowels were completely neutralized, I'd have seen more misspellings than I have. I've never seen property misspelt and I've seen propaganda misspelt only as propoganda, never as propeganda or propiganda and I once saw Texas misspelt as Texes which didn't surprise me as much as I'd have been surprised by Texos, so there must be something about a reduced vowel's pronunciation that indicates that it's one of several vowels or that it's not one of the other vowels. >> > That is, if they are taught only to reduce length, would quality >> > reduction automatically follow, thereby making it unnecessary to teach [quoted text clipped - 18 lines] >Why did anyone decide to use rz in the first place? Why not just z, br, >dz., tsz, etc? There are sound historical reasons for that. <rz> digraph has existed since medieval times when Poles and Czechs shared the same orthography and literary language. When I ask my Polish friends if they can pronounce the Czech <ř>, they always insist they can and that even today in some parts of Poland the <rz> is still pronounced palatalized, similar to Czech <ř> (i.e. "soft" <r>). >> I still get the impression that Poles pronounce them subtly >> different, even though I know that I am wrong. It's an aural illusion >> caused by familiarity with the written form. I think sometimes your impression could be correct. AFAICT, (sometimes) some Poles do pronounce them differently. pjk >I'm not sure that you're completely wrong. If short vowels were >completely neutralized, I'd have seen more misspellings than I have. [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] >vowel's pronunciation that indicates that it's one of several vowels or >that it's not one of the other vowels. > When I ask my Polish friends if they can pronounce the > Czech <ř>, they always insist they can and that even [quoted text clipped - 7 lines] > I think sometimes your impression could be correct. > AFAICT, (sometimes) some Poles do pronounce them differently. When a Pole pronounces it differently, how would a Czech transcribe his pronunciation of Andrzej - with r, r<hacek> or z<hacek>? >> When I ask my Polish friends if they can pronounce the >> Czech <ř>, they always insist they can and that even [quoted text clipped - 10 lines] >When a Pole pronounces it differently, how would a Czech transcribe his >pronunciation of Andrzej - with r, r<hacek> or z<hacek>? The Czech version of that name is Andrej (also Ondrej or Ondra) all with hard trilled "r". So on one hand a Czech is likely to write it down with an "r", on the other hand no matter how the Pole pronounces it it is unlikely to sound as Czech "r". The Czech may write it down as any of the "rz", "ř" or "ž" depending on which part of Poland the Pole is from and whether the Czech is familiar with Polish pronunciation and/or existence of "rz" in the name of Andrzej. If the Czech completely fails to identify Andrzej as a known christian name he may be likely to write it down as "andžej" or even "ančej" if he hasn't heard it properly. pjk Ranjit, > Why did anyone decide to use rz in the first place? Why not just z, br, > dz., tsz, etc? They didn't just one day decide to use <rz> -- it arose on its own, most likely out of parallelism with <cz> and <sz>. And as Paul pointed out, it has resonance with Czech as well -- generally speaking, where Czech has <Þ> (<r^>), Polish will have <rz>. As a rule, modern Polish <rz> is the reflex of a palatalized /r/ -- an /r/ that at some point in the history of Polish was followed by a front vowel. So, <rzeka> 'river' (cf. Russian <reka>), <trzy> 'three' (cf. Russian <tri>, etc. Even though it now has merged phonemically with <›> (<z.>), this was not always the case. (And the <y> that follows all these letters is an orthographic convention -- you cannot follow any of them with <i> in modern Polish.) Of note is that in some Polish dialects, <rz> and <›> (<z.>)remain distinct, because <rz> merged with <z>. So in those dialects, <morze> 'sea' and <mo›e> (<moz.e>) are distinct. Cheers, Keith > In fact, it is very difficult to convince them that reduced vowels are > indeed pronounced differently from they letter by which they are > represented. They will try to preserve at all costs a distinction > between the final vowel in rabbit, rivet, maggot and separate > (adjective). On top of that, they will insist that they hear the > difference when native speakers pronounce these words. Good for them - they are right. SignatureWH >> In fact, it is very difficult to convince them that reduced vowels are >> indeed pronounced differently from they letter by which they are [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > >Good for them - they are right. Hear, hear. Though perhaps separate (adj.) doesn't quite live up to its name. SignaturePaul In bocca al Lupo! Dominic Bojarski pravi: > Not all languages have vowel reduction. In Polish, all vowels are > pronounced with exactly the same length, whether stressed or > unstressed, and regardless of their position in the word. There are no > long or short vowels. As far as I know, Czech is the only Slavic > language that has retained distinctions in vowel length at all. That's interesting. I would guess that actually the reverse is true. All Slavic languages have vowel length distinctions (and the Polish then an exception?). Croatian/Serbian according to (1) even in syllabic R. In Slovene there definitely are long vowels (they are always stressed, while short can be stressed or unstressed). If there is a Sanskrit cognate, I would say that the lenghts usually correspond (but I'm not sure): mAtR <-> mAti. The lengths are never specially marked in writing, so the word is written as 'mati'. ---------- (1) http://www.seelrc.org:8080/grammar/pdf/stand_alone_bcs.pdf 1.1.1 Vowels The five vowels i, e, a, o, u may occur in any position in a word: beginning, middle, end. Each can be long or short (see 1.2 Accent and vowel length below). I and e are classified as front vowels, while a, o and u are back vowels. 1.1.1.1 In addition, r can act as a vowel: long in crn 'black', short in vrt 'garden'. This "vocalic" ("syllabic") r is not specially marked in normal writing. The pronunciation is almost completely predictable, the rule being r ⇢ vowel when not next to another vowel (and in a few other rare instances). > Dominic Bojarski pravi: > [quoted text clipped - 26 lines] > rule being r ⇢ vowel when not next to another vowel (and in a few other > rare instances). Polish, Russian, Ukrainian and White Russian all lack distinctions in vowel length in any case. Czech and Slovak have long and short vowels. As to the southern Slavic languages, I don't know, but I did find this in the Wikipedia article on Slovenian: "Older analysis of Slovenian concluded that it features phonemic vowel length, but more recent studies have rejected this statement for the majority of speakers. The current analysis is that stressed vowels are long while unstressed vowels are short." Dominic Bojarski >> Dominic Bojarski pravi: >> [quoted text clipped - 31 lines] >As to the southern Slavic languages, I don't know, but I did find this >in the Wikipedia article on Slovenian: AFAIR, Czech is not the only one with distinct short and long vowels. Slovak, Serbian and Croatian also have them. There could be some additional Slavic dialects that have them too. Slovak seems to have a rhythmic rule which precludes two adjacent long syllables. Czech doesn't care about that (as in "mává" - he waves). >"Older analysis of Slovenian concluded that it features phonemic vowel >length, but more recent studies have rejected this statement for the >majority of speakers. The current analysis is that stressed vowels are >long while unstressed vowels are short." That's more-or-less the same in Russian, isn't it? pjk >Dominic Bojarski Dominic Bojarski pravi: > Polish, Russian, Ukrainian and White Russian all lack distinctions in > vowel length in any case. Czech and Slovak have long and short vowels. [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] > majority of speakers. The current analysis is that stressed vowels are > long while unstressed vowels are short." It seems to me that it is saying that all stressed vowels are long. I wasn't taught like that. But still, there exist long and short vowels. An example from: http://www.seelrc.org:8080/grammar/mainframe.jsp?nLanguageID=8 (page 23) Representation in this work/Tonemic system/Stress system bráti ‘read’ INF [bˈɾɑ́ːti] [bˈɾɑːti] brȃt ‘go read’ SUP [bˈɾɑ̀ːt] [bˈɾɑːt] bràt ‘brother’ [bˈɾɑ̀t] [bˈɾɑt] vré̡me ‘weather’ [wˈɾɛ́ːmɛ] [wˈɾɛːmɛ] zvézda ‘star’ [zˈvéːzdɑ] [zˈveːzdɑ] kmèt ‘farmer’, [kˈmɛ̀t] [kˈmɛt] pó̡tok ‘brook’ [ˈpɔ́ːtɔk] [ˈpɔːtɔk] pót ‘path, road’ [ˈpoːt] [ˈpoːt] snòp ‘sheaf’ [sˈnɔ̀p] [sˈnɔp] Dominic and all, > Polish, Russian, Ukrainian and White Russian all lack distinctions in > vowel length in any case. Czech and Slovak have long and short vowels. > As to the southern Slavic languages, I don't know, but I did find this > in the Wikipedia article on Slovenian: I'm coming into this thread a bit late, so my apologies of this has already been addressed, but I think a distinction should be made between modern phonemic length (as in Czech, Slovak, Croatian/Serbian, etc.) and Slavic languages that show *reflexes* of historical length in the modern language -- Polish and Ukrainian certainly fall into this category, as do some dialects of Russian (if memory serves). Polish and Ukrainian both show different reflexes for historically long vowels -- compensatory lengthening is a good environment to look for it. To give an oversimplified version, the back nasal vowel <ˆ> is the reflex of the historical long nasal vowel; <�> is what you get in other environments. So, <r國âƒa> (<re,ka) 'hand (NOM sing)' becomes <rˆk> (<ra,k>) 'hand (GEN pl)'. <ko�i—�> (<kos'ci—l/>) 'church (NOM/ACC sing)' becomes <ko�io�> (<kos'ciol/a>) in the GEN sing. (The <—> in Polish is pronounced [u], so it is phonetically distinct from the short reflex.) In Ukrainian, /i/ and /o/ are in much the same relationship as /u/ and /o/ in Polish. A nice example is <vin> 'he', <vona> 'she'. Cheers, Keith p.s. -- I almost took alt.usage.english off the list, since I doubt they care much about Slavic historical phonology, but... > As a matter of fact, I doubt that any preliterate native user of > English even vaguely suspects that the final vowels of rabbit, rivet > and maggot are historically derived from different vowels. Unless, > perhaps, he speaks a dialect that does not pronounce these vowels the > same, and I'm not sure if any such dialect exists. It does, I speak it (I think it's called English). SignatureWH |
Reply to this Message |
 Sign In
 Join
 My Latest Posts My Monitored Threads My Blog My Photo Gallery My Profile My Homepage Start New Thread Enable EMail Alerts Rate this Thread
|
©2012 Advenet LLC Privacy Policy - Terms of Use
This website includes both content owned or controlled by Advenet as well as content owned or controlled by third parties.