Energetics of language
Paul Pfalzner
formation?
It seems that in many cases, there is a tendency to conserve energy by
forming words in a way that uses less energy.
Examples: comparing first English and German, the German Pfund and English
Pound : the German takes less energy, the combination 'pf' being less
energetic than the 'p' sound alone followed by a vowel. Another similar
example would be German Pflaume, English 'plum'.
It is thus odd that the combination 'pf' occurs only in German. Another
German example, the word 'Kopf', shows that final 'pf' also is less
energetic than saying 'Kopp', or 'Koff' - the lips doing less work. Other
examples - Krebs cf. to Kreb - here the final 's' conserves energy. The
combination 'spr' also appears to use less energy than 'sp' alone - cf.
'sprechen' and 'speak'.
In general, the explosive sounds P, T, K seem to benefit when followed by
the sounds f, l, r, s. It seems that some languages have made more use of
conserving energy than others - beside German, perhaps the Slavic
languages may be cited here.
Paul P.
Des Small
> In general, the explosive sounds P, T, K seem to benefit when followed by
> the sounds f, l, r, s. It seems that some languages have made more use of
> conserving energy than others - beside German, perhaps the Slavic
> languages may be cited here.
Danish is almost entirely made up of sequences of [@] of varying
length. Lazy buggers, your Danes.
Des
has stalked the elusive Danish Consonant, in vain
Lee Sau Dan
Paul> It seems that in many cases, there is a tendency to conserve
Paul> energy by forming words in a way that uses less energy.
Paul> Examples: comparing first English and German, the German
Paul> Pfund and English Pound : the German takes less energy, the
Paul> combination 'pf' being less energetic than the 'p' sound
Paul> alone followed by a vowel. Another similar example would be
Paul> German Pflaume, English 'plum'.
Really? So, by how many Joules of energy does "pf" consumes less than
a "p"?
Paul> It is thus odd that the combination 'pf' occurs only in
Paul> German. Another German example, the word 'Kopf', shows that
Paul> final 'pf' also is less energetic than saying 'Kopp', or
Paul> 'Koff' - the lips doing less work.
So, why haven't all languages that lack an /f/ replaced all it's /p/
sounds with /f/ sounds to save energy?
Paul> Other examples - Krebs cf. to Kreb - here the final 's'
Paul> conserves energy.
Why does pronouncing one more sound helps to save energy? That's
counter-intuitive.
Paul> The combination 'spr' also appears to use less energy than
Paul> 'sp' alone - cf. 'sprechen' and 'speak'.
Again, why does it take less energy to pronounce one more sound? By
how many Joules?
--
Lee Sau Dan 李守敦 ~{@nJX6X~}
E-mail: dan...@informatik.uni-freiburg.de
Home page: http://www.informatik.uni-freiburg.de/~danlee
Harlan Messinger
> What is the role of energy required in pronouncing words and word
> formation?
>
> It seems that in many cases, there is a tendency to conserve energy by
> forming words in a way that uses less energy.
Nothing in your analysis supports the use of the term "tendency". At
best, even assuming there's any basis to your claims, you've
demonstrated that one language uses a certain amount of energy in
certain situations, and a related language uses a different amount of
energy in the corresponding situations. Where is this "tendency" of
which you speak? What makes you think the putative energy difference
even has anything to do with *why* English does things one way and
German does them another?
me
> What is the role of energy required in pronouncing words and word
> formation?
>
> It seems that in many cases, there is a tendency to conserve energy by
> forming words in a way that uses less energy.
> Examples: comparing first English and German, the German Pfund and English
> Pound : the German takes less energy, the combination 'pf' being less
> energetic than the 'p' sound alone followed by a vowel. Another similar
> example would be German Pflaume, English 'plum'.
As far as I can tell, both plough and plum started out with [u:] vowels. How
did vowel shifts give English an [aU] in one instance and German an [aU] in
the other? Aren't sound changes were supposed to be regular.
In plough vs. pflug, it's English that has the [aU].
In plum vs. pflaume, it's German that has the [aU].
> It is thus odd that the combination 'pf' occurs only in German.
It's not a combination; it's a single sound - a bilabial affricate. Calling
it [p<f>] to distinguish it from a bilabial followed by a labiodental, is
the English [p<h>] all that different from German [p<f>]? Realizations of
Hindi /p<h>/ seem to sound like [p<h>] from some speakers, [p<f>] from
others and in yet others, it's hard to tell which it sounds closer to.
Ruud Harmsen
sci.lang:
>What is the role of energy required in pronouncing words and word
>formation?
>
>It seems that in many cases, there is a tendency to conserve energy by
>forming words in a way that uses less energy.
>Examples: comparing first English and German, the German Pfund and English
>Pound : the German takes less energy, the combination 'pf' being less
>energetic than the 'p' sound alone followed by a vowel.
Less? I'd expect more!
>nother similar
>example would be German Pflaume, English 'plum'.
>It is thus odd that the combination 'pf' occurs only in German. Another
>German example, the word 'Kopf', shows that final 'pf' also is less
>energetic than saying 'Kopp', or 'Koff' - the lips doing less work.
Here too, I disagree, but without any physical evidence.
>Other
>examples - Krebs cf. to Kreb - here the final 's' conserves energy.
Why, how????
--
Ruud Harmsen - http://rudhar.com
me
> ai...@ncf.ca (Paul Pfalzner) writes:
>
>> In general, the explosive sounds P, T, K seem to benefit when followed by
>> the sounds f, l, r, s. It seems that some languages have made more use of
>> conserving energy than others - beside German, perhaps the Slavic
>> languages may be cited here.
>
> Danish is almost entirely made up of sequences of [@] of varying
> length. Lazy buggers, your Danes.
Where in Danish is a dearth of consonants and surfeit of [@]s found? These
don't seem to fit the bill:
Margerete is pronounced [mAgre:t@].
Altan is pronounced [alte:n].
> Des
> has stalked the elusive Danish Consonant, in vain
Now, stalk the elusive Japanese consonant:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_phonology
[to↑o.oo.o↓.o↑oɯ] means "to cover Eastern Europe" in Japanese.
Des Small
> Des Small wrote:
>
> > Danish is almost entirely made up of sequences of [@] of varying
> > length. Lazy buggers, your Danes.
>
> Nah, we are just being economical.
>
> I don't remember who (but I think it was a Swede) wrote something
> like 'Egedesminde is pronounced E-mumble-mumble-SMINDE in Danish'.
Andreas Johannson?:
"""
Danish is essentially Swedish minus articulation.
--Andreas Johannson
Danish is essentially [@::::::::::::::::].
--Andreas Johannson
"""
<http://home.ccil.org/~cowan/essential.html>
Des
doesn't make this stuff up
Neeraj Mathur
"Paul Pfalzner" <ai...@ncf.ca> wrote in message
news:e4i6sm$4k3$1...@theodyn.ncf.ca...
> What is the role of energy required in pronouncing words and word
> formation?
>
> It seems that in many cases, there is a tendency to conserve energy by
> forming words in a way that uses less energy.
Setting aside the veracity of your examples, for which you will need to
argue much more persuasively (if you continue to claim you're right, that
is, although it seems nobody here - myself included - is prepared to believe
them) your question thus far has merit.
Yes, there is a general diachronic tendency for sound changes to be
motivated by a reduction of effort, (but this is not the only motivating
factor, as we shall discuss). For instance, one of the major changes from
Old Indo-Aryan to Middle Indo-Aryan was that consonant clusters underwent
assimilation to lengthened consonants (which I will represent, following
Indian orthographic convention, as double consonants; a capital indicates a
retroflex consonant): thus OIA sapta > MIA satta 'seven', OIA aSTa > MIA
aTTha 'eight', and so on. That this is a tendency can be supported by seeing
the exact same process happening in Romance: Latin septem > Italian sette,
Lat octo > It otto. Such processes would support the idea that there is a
movement towards less articulatory effort. (This is not the only such
process; epenthetic vowels and consonants, for example, and many other
processes are all part of reducing articulatory effort.)
However, there are other factors in diachronic change. As you can see, this
process alone can lead to confusion: thus, for instance, OIA can distinguish
between -pt-, -tr-, and -tt- sequences, but in MIA these all fall together
as -tt-. This can lead to considerable homophony, as I'm sure you can
imagine (I don't have words to furnish examples at the current moment, so
you either trust me, or look in something like Masica's book on *The
Indo-Aryan Languages* in the Cambridge series, or Turner's massive
comparative dictionary of Indo-Aryan (I'm not sure what its exact name is,
since its something of a myth to me)). Eventually, if this process were left
to play itself out, we would end up with a 'language' with just one sound -
some kind of grunt or sigh-type noise, perhaps (which is what Des is
probably hinting at in his post about Danish). Communication would be
impossible, since it would be extremely difficult to tell words apart.
The result is that some diachronic changes - both regular sound changes and
analogical remodelling processes - occur against the 'effort optimization'
direction, to increase the differentiation between sounds and thus aid the
distinction of individual morphemes. You thus get contrasting processes:
some that reduce articulatory effort, and others which reduce the effort to
distinguish words. Similar processes apply in things other than phonetics:
if you look at work on markedness hierarchies, both phonological and
morphological / semantic, you will see that they do not stack neatly, but
form contrasting pressures.
It is because of these contrasting aims and processes that people talk about
languages never being able to achieve complete simplicity, and that natural
languages that are L1-transmitted are all more or less as complex as each
other.
So that should answer the question as you initially put it, at least, as
quoted at the top of me post. (I'm aware that you were probably thinking
something different, from the examples you offered, but I hope that you will
have found this interesting and/or useful nonetheless.)
Neeraj Mathur
Des Small
> Des Small wrote:
> > Torsten Poulin wrote:
>
> >> I don't remember who (but I think it was a Swede) wrote something
> >> like 'Egedesminde is pronounced E-mumble-mumble-SMINDE in Danish'.
>
> > Andreas Johannson?:
>
> I can't remember. I saw it in a book about twenty years ago.
>
> Torsten
> who pronounces Egedesminde the obvious way: ['e:=D=Ds"men@]
Well I did wonder - there's almost a stop in "SMINDE" if you don't
know any better.
Des
impresses Dutches by saying mainly [X]
Peter T. Daniels
>
> What is the role of energy required in pronouncing words and word
> formation?
>
> It seems that in many cases, there is a tendency to conserve energy by
> forming words in a way that uses less energy.
Yes, and the opposite of this tendency is needed so that communication
is not impaired.
--
Peter T. Daniels gram...@att.net
Paul Pfalzner
"Neeraj Mathur" <neem...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:e4io1l$79r$1...@news.ox.ac.uk...
:
: "Paul Pfalzner" <ai...@ncf.ca> wrote in message
: news:e4i6sm$4k3$1...@theodyn.ncf.ca...
: > What is the role of energy required in pronouncing words and word
: > formation?
: >
: > It seems that in many cases, there is a tendency to conserve energy by
: > forming words in a way that uses less energy.
: [dubious examples snipped]
:
: Setting aside the veracity of your examples, for which you will need to
: argue much more persuasively (if you continue to claim you're right,
that
: is, although it seems nobody here - myself included - is prepared to
believe
: them) your question thus far has merit.
Well, there is a mixture of agrement and strange disagreement here. I
could quibble that the term 'veracity' in referring to examples seems a
bit odd !
BTAIM, I still think my examples are realistic; I am not a professional
linguist - alas - or perhaps luckily - but the combinations and examples I
gave do show - except to those who really have little affinity to the more
hidden aspects of spoken language - that the effort needed in pronouncing
a word depends on the sounds being employed. The explosive sound of 'p' is
definitely modified by inserting an 'f' , and the pronunciation of 'pf' -
for those who know German, requires less movements of the lips and cheeks.
I thus believe my remarks have some merit - though some here who seem to
have only a very superficial knowledge of pronunciation have not hesitated
to scoff.
Thanks indeed, Neeraj, for your learned disquisition which I take to
support my supposition in general terms.
ppfalzner
:
: Yes, there is a general diachronic tendency for sound changes to be
:
:
Kai Henningsen
> a word depends on the sounds being employed. The explosive sound of 'p' is
> definitely modified by inserting an 'f' , and the pronunciation of 'pf' -
> for those who know German, requires less movements of the lips and cheeks.
*Less*?!
As a native speaker, I'll say "pure bullshit". It's *significantly*
_more_.
> I thus believe my remarks have some merit - though some here who seem to
> have only a very superficial knowledge of pronunciation have not hesitated
> to scoff.
From your examples (and claims about same), I'll count you among those
ignoramuses.
Kai
--
http://www.westfalen.de/private/khms/
"... by God I *KNOW* what this network is for, and you can't have it."
- Russ Allbery (r...@stanford.edu)
Peter T. Daniels
> BTAIM, I still think my examples are realistic; I am not a professional
> linguist -
> I thus believe my remarks have some merit - though some here who seem to
> have only a very superficial knowledge of pronunciation have not hesitated
> to scoff.
The only responses you got were from professional linguists.
You're a troll. Go away.
Peter T. Daniels
week).
Is there any other discipline where ignorami request professional help,
and when they get answers, insist they were right in the first place?
Harlan Messinger
> Paul Pfalzner wrote:
>
>> BTAIM, I still think my examples are realistic; I am not a professional
>> linguist -
>
>> I thus believe my remarks have some merit - though some here who seem to
>> have only a very superficial knowledge of pronunciation have not hesitated
>> to scoff.
>
> The only responses you got were from professional linguists.
How dare you call me a professional linguist.
Not that he addressed my remarks at all.
Des Small
> First Holly, now Paul (and of course further examples will appear
> every week).
>
> Is there any other discipline where ignorami request professional
> help, and when they get answers, insist they were right in the first
> place?
Is there a discipline where they don't?
Des
is willing to retrain
Neeraj Mathur
"Peter T. Daniels" <gram...@worldnet.att.net> wrote in message
news:446DCE...@worldnet.att.net...
> Is there any other discipline where ignorami request professional help,
> and when they get answers, insist they were right in the first place?
(To be fair, some of your people didn't exactly ask for help, did they? But
specifics aside...)
I think this happens in a fair number of disciplines - medicine comes to
mind, for instance, with people in a certain generation. I remember an
anecdote about a physicist who was giving a public lecture at Cambridge on
cosmology; at the end of the lecture, apparently, an elderly woman told him
that what he'd said was bollocks and that the world was resting on the back
of a giant tortoise. He smiled and asked what the tortoise was standing on;
she answered, 'You're very clever, young man, very clever. But it's
tortoises all the way down!' So yeah, I'm sure that physicists, and
certainly philosophers and logicians, get the same problems.
But I think the most obvious case is with the government. Have you seen any
episodes of Yes Minister? There was one called 'The Greasy Pole' (Season
Two, 1981) in which the issue of government-commissioned reports is brought
up. Sir Humphrey (the senior civil servant) advises Hacker (the imalleable
Minister) about how to deal with these reports: if they say what you want,
great, and if they don't, discredit it or don't publish it. (The techniques
of discrediting are hilarious - 'Say that it leaves some important questions
unanswered.' 'What if it doesn't?' 'Minister, there are always questions
unanswered - for instance, the ones that weren't asked.') I know the series
is fiction, but this sort of thing happens regularly in both Canada and the
UK; surely in the States as well? Governments are probably the biggest
ignoramuses who ask for expert, professional help and then ignore the
answers.
So yeah, I certainly don't think linguistics is a unique discipline in this
regard!
Neeraj Mathur
Neeraj Mathur
>
> "Neeraj Mathur" <neem...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
> news:e4io1l$79r$1...@news.ox.ac.uk...
> :
> : "Paul Pfalzner" <ai...@ncf.ca> wrote in message
> : news:e4i6sm$4k3$1...@theodyn.ncf.ca...
> : > What is the role of energy required in pronouncing words and word
> : > formation?
> : >
> : > It seems that in many cases, there is a tendency to conserve energy by
> : > forming words in a way that uses less energy.
>
> : [dubious examples snipped]
> :
> : Setting aside the veracity of your examples, for which you will need to
> : argue much more persuasively (if you continue to claim you're right,
> that
> : is, although it seems nobody here - myself included - is prepared to
> believe
> : them) your question thus far has merit.
>
> Well, there is a mixture of agrement and strange disagreement here. I
> could quibble that the term 'veracity' in referring to examples seems a
> bit odd !
Okay, I'll accept your quibble and flesh out my position: you stated a
proposition ('It seems that in many cases...' as quoted above), and then
offered up some things which you called 'examples'. There is thus a claim
there that the items you discuss in that section are valid as examples on
one side or the other of the proposition you are considering - in this case,
the claim was that the 'examples' could be used to prove the proposition
true. It is this claim whose veracity I chose to pass over in my recusatio.
> BTAIM, I still think my examples are realistic; I am not a professional
> linguist - alas - or perhaps luckily - but the combinations and examples I
> gave do show - except to those who really have little affinity to the more
> hidden aspects of spoken language - that the effort needed in pronouncing
> a word depends on the sounds being employed. The explosive sound of 'p' is
> definitely modified by inserting an 'f' , and the pronunciation of 'pf' -
> for those who know German, requires less movements of the lips and cheeks.
Well it is certainly not obvious to people who have commented so far in this
thread other than yourself that this claim - that 'pf' takes less energy,
and less movement, than 'p' - is true. I have no doubt that you find the
sound easier to make than perhaps other sounds, being a native speaker of
German; this does not mean that it is in fact in easier sound to produce. (I
am, for instance, still amazed at the effortlessness of Arabs producing
3ayn; they, and Anglophones, are all amazed at the ease with which I can
produce both voiced and voiceless consonants with or without aspiration on
demand.) Of course, to be sure, one might want to see some spectrograph
analysis, but the prima facie case that affricates take less energy than
simples stops is just not there. (Such evidence could have been provided,
for example, by showing that labial stops develop into affricates in other
languages, independent of the High German Sound Shift; you will notice that
I gave examples from independent developments in my post.) Without any
evidence for your claim, what you present us with is best considered a
benign sort of linguistic nationalism, akin to 'ce qui n'est pas clair,
n'est pas français' - perhaps true from the perspective of the speaker, but
that only because of the nature of L1 vs L2 language acquisition.
> I thus believe my remarks have some merit - though some here who seem to
> have only a very superficial knowledge of pronunciation have not hesitated
> to scoff.
>
> Thanks indeed, Neeraj, for your learned disquisition which I take to
> support my supposition in general terms.
No problem; I think that in general terms your supposition is correct, and I
tried to answer the question you posed first (quoted at the top of this
post). I do worry that you are in danger of misapplying it, and that's why I
didn't discuss your examples earlier. Nevertheless, you will see that the
other replies (reply?) that addressed this question, rather than your
examples, also agree that it is correct. You're on solid ground with your
general thesis.
Neeraj Mathur
Harlan Messinger
> Well it is certainly not obvious to people who have commented so far in this
> thread other than yourself that this claim - that 'pf' takes less energy,
> and less movement, than 'p' - is true. I have no doubt that you find the
> sound easier to make than perhaps other sounds, being a native speaker of
> German; this does not mean that it is in fact in easier sound to produce. (I
> am, for instance, still amazed at the effortlessness of Arabs producing
> 3ayn; they, and Anglophones, are all amazed at the ease with which I can
> produce both voiced and voiceless consonants with or without aspiration on
> demand.) Of course, to be sure, one might want to see some spectrograph
> analysis, but the prima facie case that affricates take less energy than
> simples stops is just not there.
Spectrographic analysis will only reveal the energy of the sound waves.
They won't account for all the energy expended in producing the sounds.
Andy
<neem...@hotmail.com> wrote
>
[
>Well it is certainly not obvious to people who have commented so far in this
>thread other than yourself that this claim - that 'pf' takes less energy,
>and less movement, than 'p' - is true.
Speaking as an old physicist, I would ask (a) what fraction of the
energy required speaking is saved by such replacements as 'pf' for 'p';
(b) what is the evolutionary or other advantage in making the change?
--
Andy Taylor [Editor, Austrian Philatelic Society]
For Austrian philately http://www.kitzbuhel.demon.co.uk/austamps
Christian Weisgerber
> BTAIM, I still think my examples are realistic; I am not a professional
> linguist - alas - or perhaps luckily - but the combinations and examples I
> gave do show - except to those who really have little affinity to the more
> hidden aspects of spoken language - that the effort needed in pronouncing
> a word depends on the sounds being employed.
A lot of that seems to be subjective. For instance, Germans always
look in horror at those "unpronounceable" consonant clusters in
slavic languages but don't bat an eye over those in their own
language, e.g. "Strumpf".
> The explosive sound of 'p' is
> definitely modified by inserting an 'f' , and the pronunciation of 'pf' -
> for those who know German, requires less movements of the lips and cheeks.
I sure know German, but I don't find "pf" any easier to articulate
than "p".
--
Christian "naddy" Weisgerber na...@mips.inka.de
Christian Weisgerber
> As far as I can tell, both plough and plum started out with [u:] vowels. How
> did vowel shifts give English an [aU] in one instance and German an [aU] in
> the other?
The English vowel must have been shortened.
> In plough vs. pflug, it's English that has the [aU].
> In plum vs. pflaume, it's German that has the [aU].
"Pflug" shows monophthongization of MHG uo.
"Pflaume" shows diphthongization of MHG u:.
> > It is thus odd that the combination 'pf' occurs only in German.
>
> It's not a combination; it's a single sound - a bilabial affricate.
Is there a nonetymological reason to not consider it a cluster?
Certainly German has no contrast between affricate and cluster for
/pf/ and /ts/.
> it [p<f>] to distinguish it from a bilabial followed by a labiodental, is
> the English [p<h>] all that different from German [p<f>]?
Yes. German initial /p/ is also realized as [p<h>].
me
> me <nor...@noreply.net> wrote:
>
>> As far as I can tell, both plough and plum started out with [u:] vowels.
>> How did vowel shifts give English an [aU] in one instance and German an
>> [aU] in the other?
>
> The English vowel must have been shortened.
>
>> In plough vs. pflug, it's English that has the [aU].
>> In plum vs. pflaume, it's German that has the [aU].
>
> "Pflug" shows monophthongization of MHG uo.
> "Pflaume" shows diphthongization of MHG u:.
>
>> > It is thus odd that the combination 'pf' occurs only in German.
>>
>> It's not a combination; it's a single sound - a bilabial affricate.
>
> Is there a nonetymological reason to not consider it a cluster?
It seems so. Kampfen sounds like it has a syllable boundary between m and
pf. If pf were a cluster, the syllable boundary would be between p and f
like in "campfire".
> Certainly German has no contrast between affricate and cluster for
> /pf/ and /ts/.
Witzel has a cluster in American pronunciation [wIt-sEl] and an affricate
[vI-tsel] in German pronunciation. In intervocalic positions, it's Italian
"pizza" that has <zz> pronounced with something approaching a cluster [ts].
In terminal positions, however, German z or ze can be pronounced [ts] or
[ts@].
Brian M. Scott
Weisgerber <na...@mips.inka.de> wrote in
<news:e4kmc5$4fv$1...@kemoauc.mips.inka.de> in
alt.usage.german,sci.lang:
> me <nor...@noreply.net> wrote:
>> As far as I can tell, both plough and plum started out
>> with [u:] vowels. How did vowel shifts give English an
>> [aU] in one instance and German an [aU] in the other?
> The English vowel must have been shortened.
The shortening first appears in the 14th century, according
to the OED, but the long vowel is found in 1570 and survives
in Scots <ploom> [plum]; had it survived into PDE, the word
would presumably be *<ploum> /plaUm/. The same thing
happened with <thumb> (OE <þúma>). The OED also notes a Low
German <plumme> with shortened vowel.
But in fact they did not start out with the same vowel:
<plough> is from late OE <plóh>. This would regularly give
PDE */pl@U/; /plaU/ seems to be the result of levelling from
the nom. pl. and dat. and gen. sing.
>> In plough vs. pflug, it's English that has the [aU].
>> In plum vs. pflaume, it's German that has the [aU].
> "Pflug" shows monophthongization of MHG uo.
> "Pflaume" shows diphthongization of MHG u:.
>>> It is thus odd that the combination 'pf' occurs only in German.
>> It's not a combination; it's a single sound - a bilabial affricate.
> Is there a nonetymological reason to not consider it a cluster?
Apparently so:
<www.zas.gwz-berlin.de/turbulences/abstract/Migue_ab.pdf>.
The fact that [pf] can occur in both syllable-initial and
syllable-final position points towards its being a single
phoneme, as does the fact that [fp] doesn't occur.
[...]
Brian
Ruud Harmsen
sci.lang:
>Danish is almost entirely made up of sequences of [@] of varying
>length. Lazy buggers, your Danes.
>
>Des
>has stalked the elusive Danish Consonant, in vain
Nice as a persiflage. But a very different story here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danish_phonology
me
> me wrote:
>> Margerete is pronounced [mAgre:t@].
>
> It is spelled "Margret(h)e" and pronounced [mA'gr{:?d@] (SAMPA).
That looks like "marg ratter". I didn't hear a vowel like in "rat". Perhaps
[E:]. Are you sure it isn't [mA'grE:?d@]?
Lee Sau Dan
Christian> A lot of that seems to be subjective. For instance,
Christian> Germans always look in horror at those
Christian> "unpronounceable" consonant clusters in slavic
Christian> languages but don't bat an eye over those in their own
Christian> language, e.g. "Strumpf".
s/Germans/English speakers/
s/slavic/German/
s/Strumpf/strengths/
:)
Christian> I sure know German, but I don't find "pf" any easier to
Christian> articulate than "p".
Me too.
--
Lee Sau Dan 李守敦 ~{@nJX6X~}
E-mail: dan...@informatik.uni-freiburg.de
Home page: http://www.informatik.uni-freiburg.de/~danlee
Oliver Cromm
> Paul Pfalzner <ai...@SPAMOFF.ncf.ca> wrote:
>
>> The explosive sound of 'p' is
>> definitely modified by inserting an 'f' , and the pronunciation of 'pf' -
>> for those who know German, requires less movements of the lips and cheeks.
>
> I sure know German, but I don't find "pf" any easier to articulate
> than "p".
I (another German) don't find "pf" difficult, but none easier than "p",
rather more effort.
More interesting is that a significant portion of Germans prefer to say
f or p instead of pf in their dialects. My grandfather used to live in
the town of "Pfungstadt", in the local dialect: "Pungscht".
--
Oliver C.
Paul Pfalzner
"Oliver Cromm" <lispa...@internet.uqam.ca> wrote in message
news:19psrb01c6pwq$.dlg@ocromm.my-fqdn.de...
: Christian Weisgerber wrote:
:
: > Paul Pfalzner <ai...@SPAMOFF.ncf.ca> wrote:
: >
: >> The explosive sound of 'p' is
: >> definitely modified by inserting an 'f' , and the pronunciation of
'pf' -
: >> for those who know German, requires less movements of the lips and
cheeks.
: >
: > I sure know German, but I don't find "pf" any easier to articulate
: > than "p".
This is missing my point. I am talking about the combination 'pf' followed
by a vowel, not in isolation. The 'pf' followed by a vowel places the lips
in a position where the energy is reduced in pronouncing the vowel.
Try 'po' and 'pfo' - 'pu' and 'pfu' , etc. Doing this carefully, one
notices that the initial 'p' is considerably less explosive when in
combination with 'f'.
Another example of saving energy occurs in German when the sound of 'st'
either at the beginning of a word or beginning of a syllable is
pronounced - I can only approximate this using English sounds, viz. 'st'
is pronounced like 'sht'. If I am wrong, then what is the reason that
'st' becomes 'sht' in these instances? Ex. 'er stolpert ueber eine spitzen
Stein".
Peter T. Daniels
>
> "Oliver Cromm" <lispa...@internet.uqam.ca> wrote in message
> news:19psrb01c6pwq$.dlg@ocromm.my-fqdn.de...
> : Christian Weisgerber wrote:
> :
> : > Paul Pfalzner <ai...@SPAMOFF.ncf.ca> wrote:
> : >
> : >> The explosive sound of 'p' is
> : >> definitely modified by inserting an 'f' , and the pronunciation of
> 'pf' -
> : >> for those who know German, requires less movements of the lips and
> cheeks.
> : >
> : > I sure know German, but I don't find "pf" any easier to articulate
> : > than "p".
> :
>
> This is missing my point. I am talking about the combination 'pf' followed
> by a vowel, not in isolation. The 'pf' followed by a vowel places the lips
> in a position where the energy is reduced in pronouncing the vowel.
Please just stop inventing nonsense.
> Try 'po' and 'pfo' - 'pu' and 'pfu' , etc. Doing this carefully, one
> notices that the initial 'p' is considerably less explosive when in
> combination with 'f'.
Try learning what technical terms mean before throwing them around.
> Another example of saving energy occurs in German when the sound of 'st'
> either at the beginning of a word or beginning of a syllable is
> pronounced - I can only approximate this using English sounds, viz. 'st'
> is pronounced like 'sht'. If I am wrong, then what is the reason that
> 'st' becomes 'sht' in these instances? Ex. 'er stolpert ueber eine spitzen
> Stein".
Now explain why English has "shr" but not "sr," and "st" but not "sht."
Lee Sau Dan
Oliver> More interesting is that a significant portion of Germans
Oliver> prefer to say f or p instead of pf in their dialects. My
Oliver> grandfather used to live in the town of "Pfungstadt", in
Oliver> the local dialect: "Pungscht".
But do they make that "pffffff" non-speech sound?
Lee Sau Dan
Paul> This is missing my point. I am talking about the combination
Paul> 'pf' followed by a vowel, not in isolation. The 'pf'
Paul> followed by a vowel places the lips in a position where the
Paul> energy is reduced in pronouncing the vowel.
Paul> Try 'po' and 'pfo' - 'pu' and 'pfu' , etc. Doing this
Paul> carefully, one notices that the initial 'p' is considerably
Paul> less explosive when in combination with 'f'.
I don't think so.
Paul> Another example of saving energy occurs in German when the
Paul> sound of 'st' either at the beginning of a word or beginning
Paul> of a syllable is pronounced - I can only approximate this
Paul> using English sounds, viz. 'st' is pronounced like 'sht'.
I always feel that "sh" require more energy to pronounce than "s",
because I need to round and protrude my lips for "sh" but not "s".
Paul> If I am wrong, then what is the reason that 'st' becomes
Paul> 'sht' in these instances? Ex. 'er stolpert ueber eine
Paul> spitzen Stein".
And what's the reason that "qu" is pronounced [k'w] in English, but
only [k] in French/Italian/Spanish?
Neeraj Mathur
> This is missing my point. I am talking about the combination 'pf' followed
> by a vowel, not in isolation. The 'pf' followed by a vowel places the lips
> in a position where the energy is reduced in pronouncing the vowel.
>
> Try 'po' and 'pfo' - 'pu' and 'pfu' , etc. Doing this carefully, one
> notices that the initial 'p' is considerably less explosive when in
> combination with 'f'.
You don't save anything on the 'explosiveness' as you put it that you don't
then spend on the 'f' portion.
> Another example of saving energy occurs in German when the sound of 'st'
> either at the beginning of a word or beginning of a syllable is
> pronounced - I can only approximate this using English sounds, viz. 'st'
> is pronounced like 'sht'. If I am wrong, then what is the reason that
> 'st' becomes 'sht' in these instances? Ex. 'er stolpert ueber eine spitzen
> Stein".
The only difference between English <st> and German <st> is in the place of
articulation: the tongue tip points very slightly further backward in German
than in English. There is no 'saving energy' in either one.
Neeraj Mathur
me
> "Oliver Cromm" <lispa...@internet.uqam.ca> wrote in message
> news:19psrb01c6pwq$.dlg@ocromm.my-fqdn.de...
> : Christian Weisgerber wrote:
> :
> : > Paul Pfalzner <ai...@SPAMOFF.ncf.ca> wrote:
> : >
> : >> The explosive sound of 'p' is
> : >> definitely modified by inserting an 'f' , and the pronunciation of
> 'pf' -
> : >> for those who know German, requires less movements of the lips and
> cheeks.
> : >
> : > I sure know German, but I don't find "pf" any easier to articulate
> : > than "p".
> :
>
> This is missing my point. I am talking about the combination 'pf' followed
> by a vowel, not in isolation. The 'pf' followed by a vowel places the lips
> in a position where the energy is reduced in pronouncing the vowel.
>
> Try 'po' and 'pfo' - 'pu' and 'pfu' , etc. Doing this carefully, one
> notices that the initial 'p' is considerably less explosive when in
> combination with 'f'.
Well, why do you think [p] is called a plosive? Be that as it may, what you
notice as an explosion might partly be the <h> in [p<h>] the initial
realization of /p/ in English. [po:] is a word in Tamil and Malayalam
whereas there is no word starting with [po:] in English; they only start
with [p<h>@U], so you might not be able to get an Anglo to try [po:]
whether carefully or otherwise.
> Another example of saving energy occurs in German when the sound of 'st'
> either at the beginning of a word or beginning of a syllable is
> pronounced - I can only approximate this using English sounds, viz. 'st'
> is pronounced like 'sht'. If I am wrong, then what is the reason that
> 'st' becomes 'sht' in these instances? Ex. 'er stolpert ueber eine spitzen
> Stein".
The realizations of /s/ and /t/ are co-articulated. In German, the point of
articulation is a little behind the alveolar ridge whereas in English, it's
a little in front of the alveolar ridge. This changes the way the cluster
sounds. Start with an English 'st' and then re-pronounce it further back
(behind the alveolar ridge) without varying the amount of energy expended
and see if it sounds un-German.
Lee Sau Dan
Neeraj> The only difference between English <st> and German <st>
Neeraj> is in the place of articulation: the tongue tip points
Neeraj> very slightly further backward in German than in
Neeraj> English.
Another difference is the lip rounding that accompanies the German
<st>. And I _feel_ that it indeed requires more energy.
Neeraj> There is no 'saving energy' in either one.
Unless some can show me some concrete evidence (e.g. how many Joules
of energy is saved).
Kai Henningsen
I'd be more willing to accept a claim for one *phoneme* than for one
*sound*.
However, the occurrence argument seems somewhat unconvincing. Lanugages,
or so it seems to me, use only a part of the stuff they reasonably *could*
use, for a large number of reasons; but using that to construct
definitions often makes for a rather arbitrary feel to those definitions.
And yes, I probably wouldn't say something like that about math. But then,
math (these days) doesn't pretend to be about reality.
Christian Weisgerber
> More interesting is that a significant portion of Germans prefer to say
> f or p instead of pf in their dialects. My grandfather used to live in
> the town of "Pfungstadt", in the local dialect: "Pungscht".
That reflects the outcome of the p->pf sound shift in the dialects,
e.g. the Palatinate is the southern tip of the area where p remained
unshifted. I think in some areas of Bavaria initial p->pf->f was
completed.
Christian Weisgerber
> Another example of saving energy occurs in German when the sound of 'st'
> either at the beginning of a word or beginning of a syllable is
> pronounced - I can only approximate this using English sounds, viz. 'st'
> is pronounced like 'sht'.
In Southern dialects st is pronounced /St/ in all positions.
Both English and German have shifted initial [s]+consonant to
[S]+consonant for some combinations:
sk- -> E. sh-, G. sch-
sr- -> E. shr-, G. schr-
German has extended this shift to additional clusters:
sl- -> schl- (e.g. sling, Schlinge)
sm- -> schm- (e.g. smith, Schmied)
sn- -> schn- (e.g. snow, Schnee)
sw- -> schw- (e.g. swim, schwimmen)
as well as st- and sp- in pronunciation, although not in spelling.
> If I am wrong, then what is the reason that 'st' becomes 'sht'
> in these instances?
It's a sound shift. They happen. I'm not sure "why" is an applicable
question.
Christian Weisgerber
> Oliver> More interesting is that a significant portion of Germans
> Oliver> prefer to say f or p instead of pf in their dialects. My
> Oliver> grandfather used to live in the town of "Pfungstadt", in
> Oliver> the local dialect: "Pungscht".
>
> But do they make that "pffffff" non-speech sound?
Whatever that sound is, it is not [pf] or [p<h>f].
It is some sort of bilabial plosive, but with relaxed lips.
Christian Weisgerber
> Both English and German have shifted initial [s]+consonant to
> [S]+consonant for some combinations:
>
> sk- -> E. sh-, G. sch-
> sr- -> E. shr-, G. schr-
Actually, shr-/schr- derive from skr-. Apparently there was no
cluster sr- in Germanic.
Ekkehard Dengler
"Lee Sau Dan" <dan...@informatik.uni-freiburg.de> schrieb im Newsbeitrag
news:87iro0d...@informatik.uni-freiburg.de...
> >>>>> "Neeraj" == Neeraj Mathur <neem...@hotmail.com> writes:
>
> Neeraj> The only difference between English <st> and German <st>
> Neeraj> is in the place of articulation: the tongue tip points
> Neeraj> very slightly further backward in German than in
> Neeraj> English.
>
> Another difference is the lip rounding that accompanies the German
> <st>.
German /S/ isn't normally rounded, except perhaps before rounded vowels.
Regards,
Ekkehard
Lee Sau Dan
Christian> German has extended this shift to additional clusters:
Christian> sl- -> schl- (e.g. sling, Schlinge)
Christian> sm- -> schm- (e.g. smith, Schmied)
Christian> sn- -> schn- (e.g. snow, Schnee)
Christian> sw- -> schw- (e.g. swim, schwimmen)
Christian> as well as st- and sp- in pronunciation, although not
Christian> in spelling.
I have been wondering why they didn't shorten those spellings to "sl",
"sm", "sn", "sw" during the spelling reforms. That could have made
German spellings much shorter. (I'm not aware of any instances of /s/
followed by /l/, /m/, /n/, and /w/. So, there would be no ambiguities
by this shortening.)
>> If I am wrong, then what is the reason that 'st' becomes 'sht'
>> in these instances?
Christian> It's a sound shift. They happen. I'm not sure "why"
Christian> is an applicable question.
And some German dialects have not gone through that sound shift. They
use /s/ for "st" and "sp".
Lee Sau Dan
Ekkehard> "Lee Sau Dan" <dan...@informatik.uni-freiburg.de>
Ekkehard> schrieb im Newsbeitrag
Ekkehard> news:87iro0d...@informatik.uni-freiburg.de...
>> >>>>> "Neeraj" == Neeraj Mathur <neem...@hotmail.com> writes:
>>
Neeraj> The only difference between English <st> and German <st>
Neeraj> is in the place of articulation: the tongue tip points
Neeraj> very slightly further backward in German than in English.
>> Another difference is the lip rounding that accompanies the
>> German <st>.
Ekkehard> German /S/ isn't normally rounded, except perhaps before
Ekkehard> rounded vowels.
That doesn't agree with what I have observed.
António Marques
> Ekkehard> German /S/ isn't normally rounded, except perhaps before
> Ekkehard> rounded vowels.
>
> That doesn't agree with what I have observed.
I've met germans with a very rounded /S/, but I don't think it's general.
--
am
laurus : rhodophyta : brezoneg : smalltalk : stargate
António Marques
> Christian> as well as st- and sp- in pronunciation, although not
> Christian> in spelling.
>
> I have been wondering why they didn't shorten those spellings to "sl",
> "sm", "sn", "sw" during the spelling reforms. That could have made
> German spellings much shorter. (I'm not aware of any instances of /s/
> followed by /l/, /m/, /n/, and /w/. So, there would be no ambiguities
> by this shortening.)
Because of a lot of -s + (l- m- n- w-) compounds? I have trouble enough
with Schifffahr losing an f.
Kai Henningsen
> Lee Sau Dan <dan...@informatik.uni-freiburg.de> wrote:
>
> > Oliver> More interesting is that a significant portion of Germans
> > Oliver> prefer to say f or p instead of pf in their dialects. My
> > Oliver> grandfather used to live in the town of "Pfungstadt", in
> > Oliver> the local dialect: "Pungscht".
> >
> > But do they make that "pffffff" non-speech sound?
>
> Whatever that sound is, it is not [pf] or [p<h>f].
> It is some sort of bilabial plosive, but with relaxed lips.
Seems to me it's exactly what happens when you start saying the pf in, for
example, Pfund, and then just don't stop.
At least I can detect no difference in lip movement.
Lee Sau Dan
António> Lee Sau Dan wrote:
Christian> as well as st- and sp- in pronunciation, although not
Christian> in spelling.
>> I have been wondering why they didn't shorten those spellings
>> to "sl", "sm", "sn", "sw" during the spelling reforms. That
>> could have made German spellings much shorter. (I'm not aware
>> of any instances of /s/ followed by /l/, /m/, /n/, and /w/.
>> So, there would be no ambiguities by this shortening.)
António> Because of a lot of -s + (l- m- n- w-) compounds? I have
António> trouble enough with Schifffahr losing an f.
Schifffahrt? And Sauerstoffflasche, Stickstoffflasche,
Wasserstoffflasche, etc.
Like "Frühlingsschnee" vs. my proposed "Frühlingssnee"?
But we do have "Einkommenssteuer", where there are 2 consecutive "s"
pronounced differently.
--
Lee Sau Dan
Lee Sau Dan
António> Lee Sau Dan wrote:
Ekkehard> German /S/ isn't normally rounded, except perhaps before
Ekkehard> rounded vowels.
>> That doesn't agree with what I have observed.
António> I've met germans with a very rounded /S/, but I don't
António> think it's general.
I haven't met a German who pronounces "Stein" without that lip
movement accompanying the "s". (If you don't round that "s", you
could pronounce "Stein" with little lip movement.)
And I didn't say "very rounded /S/". I said it comes with
lip-rounding.
Gerd Thieme
> German /S/ isn't normally rounded, except perhaps before rounded vowels.
Actually, it is. Compare your lip positions in Schein vs. sein, Schere
vs. sehr, schieben vs. sieben. Occasionally, the roundung even distorts
a following short I in less careful pronunciation, so Schiff may sound
like Schüff, schippen like schüppm, and schimpfen like schümpfm.
Gerd
--
Every generation laughs at the old fashions,
but follows religiously the new (Thoreau)
Ruud Harmsen
Weisgerber): in sci.lang:
>Christian Weisgerber <na...@mips.inka.de> wrote:
>
>> Both English and German have shifted initial [s]+consonant to
>> [S]+consonant for some combinations:
>>
>> sk- -> E. sh-, G. sch-
>> sr- -> E. shr-, G. schr-
>
>Actually, shr-/schr- derive from skr-. Apparently there was no
>cluster sr- in Germanic.
Right, I was already wondering. Dutch has <schr> here, pronounced /sr/
by some, /sxr/ by others.
Ruud Harmsen
sci.lang:
>Because of a lot of -s + (l- m- n- w-) compounds? I have trouble enough
>with Schifffahr losing an f.
Schifffahrt, and in the latest spelling, nothing is lost.
andrew...@hotmail.com
Lee Sau Dan wrote:
> >>>>> "Christian" == Christian Weisgerber <na...@mips.inka.de> writes:
>
> Christian> German has extended this shift to additional clusters:
>
> Christian> sl- -> schl- (e.g. sling, Schlinge)
> Christian> sm- -> schm- (e.g. smith, Schmied)
> Christian> sn- -> schn- (e.g. snow, Schnee)
> Christian> sw- -> schw- (e.g. swim, schwimmen)
>
> Christian> as well as st- and sp- in pronunciation, although not
> Christian> in spelling.
>
> I have been wondering why they didn't shorten those spellings to "sl",
> "sm", "sn", "sw" during the spelling reforms. That could have made
> German spellings much shorter. (I'm not aware of any instances of /s/
> followed by /l/, /m/, /n/, and /w/. So, there would be no ambiguities
> by this shortening.)
>
What about words such as "slawisch"? Obviously not Germanic in origin,
but part of the modern vocabulary.
Ekkehard Dengler
Gerd Thieme schrieb:
> On Sun, 21 May 2006 22:22:38 +0200, Ekkehard Dengler wrote:
>
> > German /S/ isn't normally rounded, except perhaps before rounded vowels.
>
> Actually, it is.
Only if you take "normally" to mean "when speaking with a distinct northern
accent".
> Compare your lip positions in Schein vs. sein, Schere
> vs. sehr, schieben vs. sieben. Occasionally, the roundung even distorts
> a following short I in less careful pronunciation, so Schiff may sound
> like Schüff, schippen like schüppm, and schimpfen like schümpfm.
> Occasionally, the roundung even distorts a following short I in less
careful pronunciation, so Schiff may sound like Schüff, schippen like
schüppm, and schimpfen like schümpfm.
Nicely observed. Some people talk like that, for example Susanne Danßmann,
who presents the four-day forecast at the end of "Das Wetter im Ersten", but
I don't think it would be accurate to say that "German st" is normally
rounded. She's from Berlin, by the way, where the pronunciation you describe
is relatively common, if I'm not mistaken.
Regards,
Ekkehard
António Marques
>> Because of a lot of -s + (l- m- n- w-) compounds? I have trouble enough
>> with Schifffahr losing an f.
>
> Schifffahrt, and in the latest spelling, nothing is lost.
Oh, the joy.
I thought Schifffahr wasn't unheard of.
António Marques
> >> I have been wondering why they didn't shorten those spellings
> >> to "sl", "sm", "sn", "sw" during the spelling reforms. That
> >> could have made German spellings much shorter. (I'm not aware
> >> of any instances of /s/ followed by /l/, /m/, /n/, and /w/.
> >> So, there would be no ambiguities by this shortening.)
>
> António> Because of a lot of -s + (l- m- n- w-) compounds? I have
> António> trouble enough with Schifffahr losing an f.
>
> Schifffahrt? And Sauerstoffflasche, Stickstoffflasche,
> Wasserstoffflasche, etc.
I was only thinking of -s + n-, hadn't even considered the particular
case of -ss + n-.
> Like "Frühlingsschnee" vs. my proposed "Frühlingssnee"?
Notice that -ssn- /sn/ isn't unheard of.
> But we do have "Einkommenssteuer", where there are 2 consecutive "s"
> pronounced differently.
But <st> is special enough.
Whatever the merit of the disambiguation, I'm sure it is the reason.
Oliver Cromm
> Oliver Cromm <lispa...@internet.uqam.ca> wrote:
>
>> More interesting is that a significant portion of Germans prefer to say
>> f or p instead of pf in their dialects. My grandfather used to live in
>> the town of "Pfungstadt", in the local dialect: "Pungscht".
>
> That reflects the outcome of the p->pf sound shift in the dialects,
> e.g. the Palatinate is the southern tip of the area where p remained
> unshifted.
Thanks - the problem was indeed that I wouldn't have expected it so far
south.
--
Oliver Cromm
koisuru kokoro-ni / itsu-de-mo henji-ha OUI OUI
Akiko Yano, Oui Oui
Lee Sau Dan
António> Oh, the joy. I thought Schifffahr wasn't unheard of.
In what context? A book giving examples of grammatical errors?
I know what are Schifffahrt, Schifffahrer and Schifffahren. But
Schifffahr is so strange. What is it?
Lee Sau Dan
>> Like "Frühlingsschnee" vs. my proposed "Frühlingssnee"?
António> Notice that -ssn- /sn/ isn't unheard of.
>> But we do have "Einkommenssteuer", where there are 2
>> consecutive "s" pronounced differently.
António> But <st> is special enough.
Then, why not make <sn>, <sm>, <sw> special, too?
Many valleys in Germany are called ...stal (some have kept an older
spelling "Thal" instead of "Tal"). And you think it's problematic
because "st" is special?
--
Lee Sau Dan 李守敦 ~{@nJX6X~}
E-mail: dan...@informatik.uni-freiburg.de
Home page: http://www.informatik.uni-freiburg.de/~danlee
Ekkehard Dengler
António Marques schrieb:
> Lee Sau Dan wrote:
>
> > >> I have been wondering why they didn't shorten those spellings
> > >> to "sl", "sm", "sn", "sw" during the spelling reforms. That
> > >> could have made German spellings much shorter. (I'm not aware
> > >> of any instances of /s/ followed by /l/, /m/, /n/, and /w/.
> > >> So, there would be no ambiguities by this shortening.)
> >
> > António> Because of a lot of -s + (l- m- n- w-) compounds? I have
> > António> trouble enough with Schifffahr losing an f.
> >
> > Schifffahrt? And Sauerstoffflasche, Stickstoffflasche,
> > Wasserstoffflasche, etc.
>
> I was only thinking of -s + n-, hadn't even considered the particular
> case of -ss + n-.
>
> > Like "Frühlingsschnee" vs. my proposed "Frühlingssnee"?
>
> Notice that -ssn- /sn/ isn't unheard of.
Could you provide an example? The only one I can think of is
"Nachmittagssnack", which obviously doesn't count.
Regards,
Ekkehard
Peter T. Daniels
Flussname (since you disregard morpheme boundaries)
Schlossnahme (I don't know whether it exists, but no reason it
shouldn't)
--
Peter T. Daniels gram...@att.net
Ekkehard Dengler
"Peter T. Daniels" <gram...@worldnet.att.net> schrieb im Newsbeitrag
news:447308...@worldnet.att.net...
Thanks. For no good reason, I thought the boundary was supposed to be
between the two s's.
> Schlossnahme (I don't know whether it exists, but no reason it
> shouldn't)
Because it doesn't make much sense?
Regards,
Ekkehard
Oliver Cromm
> Gerd Thieme schrieb:
>> On Sun, 21 May 2006 22:22:38 +0200, Ekkehard Dengler wrote:
>>
>>> German /S/ isn't normally rounded, except perhaps before rounded vowels.
>>
>> Actually, it is.
>
> Only if you take "normally" to mean "when speaking with a distinct northern
> accent".
I tried, I have to tighten the sides of my mouth. If I don't round at
all, it sounds like a speech impediment that I heard in some people: it
comes out halfway between Schtein and Chtein.
>> Compare your lip positions in Schein vs. sein, Schere
>> vs. sehr, schieben vs. sieben. Occasionally, the roundung even distorts
>> a following short I in less careful pronunciation, so Schiff may sound
>> like Schüff, schippen like schüppm, and schimpfen like schümpfm.
That's regional, and this degree of rounding is not usual.
--
Oliver C.
Oliver Cromm
> na...@mips.inka.de (Christian Weisgerber) wrote on 21.05.06 in <e4qb7f$2cc7$2...@kemoauc.mips.inka.de>:
>
>> Lee Sau Dan <dan...@informatik.uni-freiburg.de> wrote:
>>
>>> Oliver> More interesting is that a significant portion of Germans
>>> Oliver> prefer to say f or p instead of pf in their dialects. My
>>> Oliver> grandfather used to live in the town of "Pfungstadt", in
>>> Oliver> the local dialect: "Pungscht".
>>>
>>> But do they make that "pffffff" non-speech sound?
>>
>> Whatever that sound is, it is not [pf] or [p<h>f].
>> It is some sort of bilabial plosive, but with relaxed lips.
>
> Seems to me it's exactly what happens when you start saying the pf in, for
> example, Pfund, and then just don't stop.
>
> At least I can detect no difference in lip movement.
There are two "pff" sounds. One is more a word; when you think you
aren't taken serious, you may answer "pfff!". That one is identical to
the <pf> in Pfund. But when Lee talks of a non-speech sound, I would
have implied, like Christian did, that it is that other sound that
expresses tiredness, maybe you could call it a non-voiced version of
"puhhhhh".
--
Oliver C.
António Marques
>>>>> Like "Frühlingsschnee" vs. my proposed "Frühlingssnee"?
>>>>
>>>> Notice that -ssn- /sn/ isn't unheard of.
>>>
>>> Could you provide an example? The only one I can think of is
>>> "Nachmittagssnack", which obviously doesn't count.
>>
>> Flussname (since you disregard morpheme boundaries)
>
> Thanks. For no good reason, I thought the boundary was supposed to be
> between the two s's.
I was actually thinking of the opposite case (as in Peter's examples).
António Marques
>>> Like "Frühlingsschnee" vs. my proposed "Frühlingssnee"?
>
> António> Notice that -ssn- /sn/ isn't unheard of.
>
>>> But we do have "Einkommenssteuer", where there are 2
>>> consecutive "s" pronounced differently.
>
> António> But <st> is special enough.
>
> Then, why not make <sn>, <sm>, <sw> special, too?
<st> wasn't made special, it just is. <sm> is probably your best
candidate, but still not there.
> Many valleys in Germany are called ...stal (some have kept an older
> spelling "Thal" instead of "Tal"). And you think it's problematic
> because "st" is special?
No, because t(h)al is quite well known and the <l> is single.
António Marques
> António> Oh, the joy.
This went with 'nothing is dropped now'.
>> I thought Schifffahr wasn't unheard of.
>
> In what context? A book giving examples of grammatical errors?
Grammatical?
> I know what are Schifffahrt, Schifffahrer and Schifffahren. But
> Schifffahr is so strange. What is it?
I was under the (erroneous, it seems) impression that it was a common
rendering of Schifffahrt.
Why won't you take off your quotes' whitespace indent?
Peter T. Daniels
What would you call the capturing of a castle?
Brian M. Scott
<gram...@worldnet.att.net> wrote in
<news:447386...@worldnet.att.net> in
alt.usage.german,sci.lang:
> Ekkehard Dengler wrote:
>> "Peter T. Daniels" <gram...@worldnet.att.net> schrieb im Newsbeitrag
>> news:447308...@worldnet.att.net...
[...]
>>> Schlossnahme (I don't know whether it exists, but no reason it
>>> shouldn't)
>> Because it doesn't make much sense?
> What would you call the capturing of a castle?
There are actually a (very) few instances of
<Schlosseroberung> on the web, but none of <Schlossnahme>.
Brian
Ekkehard Dengler
Peter T. Daniels schrieb:
> What would you call the capturing of a castle?
Typically, "Eroberung/Einnahme einer/der Burg", "Eroberung/Einnahme
eines/des Schlosses" or "Burgeroberung". "Schlosseroberung", "Burgeinnahme"
and "Schlosseinnahme" are possible, but unusual.
Regards,
Ekkehard
Lee Sau Dan
Ekkehard> Peter T. Daniels schrieb:
>> What would you call the capturing of a castle?
Ekkehard> Typically, "Eroberung/Einnahme einer/der Burg",
Ekkehard> "Eroberung/Einnahme eines/des Schlosses" or
Ekkehard> "Burgeroberung". "Schlosseroberung", "Burgeinnahme" and
Ekkehard> "Schlosseinnahme" are possible, but unusual.
How about "Übernahme"?
--
Lee Sau Dan 李守敦 ~{@nJX6X~}
E-mail: dan...@informatik.uni-freiburg.de
Home page: http://www.informatik.uni-freiburg.de/~danlee
Ekkehard Dengler
"Lee Sau Dan" <dan...@informatik.uni-freiburg.de> schrieb im Newsbeitrag
news:874pzgq...@informatik.uni-freiburg.de...
> >>>>> "Ekkehard" == Ekkehard Dengler <ED...@t-online.de> writes:
>
> Ekkehard> Peter T. Daniels schrieb:
>
> >> What would you call the capturing of a castle?
>
> Ekkehard> Typically, "Eroberung/Einnahme einer/der Burg",
> Ekkehard> "Eroberung/Einnahme eines/des Schlosses" or
> Ekkehard> "Burgeroberung". "Schlosseroberung", "Burgeinnahme" and
> Ekkehard> "Schlosseinnahme" are possible, but unusual.
>
> How about "Übernahme"?
"Übernahme" would imply that the castle was taken possession of through
non-violent means.
Regards,
Ekkehard
Xalinai
> >>>>> "António" == António Marques <m....@sapo.pt> writes:
>
> António> Lee Sau Dan wrote:
> Christian> as well as st- and sp- in pronunciation, although not
> Christian> in spelling.
> >> I have been wondering why they didn't shorten those spellings
> >> to "sl", "sm", "sn", "sw" during the spelling reforms. That
> >> could have made German spellings much shorter. (I'm not aware
> >> of any instances of s followed by l, m, n, and w.
> >> So, there would be no ambiguities by this shortening.)
>
> António> Because of a lot of -s + (l- m- n- w-) compounds? I have
> António> trouble enough with Schifffahr losing an f.
>
> Schifffahrt? And Sauerstoffflasche, Stickstoffflasche,
> Wasserstoffflasche, etc.
>
> Like "Frühlingsschnee" vs. my proposed "Frühlingssnee"?
>
> But we do have "Einkommenssteuer", where there are 2 consecutive "s"
> pronounced differently.
No, we do not have Einkommen_s_steuer. The correct name is
Einkommensteuer. It's not a tax _of_ the income (this would result in
the additional genitive "s": "Die Steuer des Einkommens") but _on_ the
income ("Die Steuer auf das Einkommen", no second "s").
This is a common mistake in German amongst the Germans.
Michael
--
Ruud Harmsen
sci.lang:
>> But we do have "Einkommenssteuer", where there are 2 consecutive "s"
>> pronounced differently.
>
>No, we do not have Einkommen_s_steuer. The correct name is
>Einkommensteuer. It's not a tax _of_ the income (this would result in
>the additional genitive "s": "Die Steuer des Einkommens") but _on_ the
>income ("Die Steuer auf das Einkommen", no second "s").
If we had a Dutch word 'inkomensbelasting' (the actual word is
'inkomstenbelasting') it would definitely need that extra s, just
based on language intuition, regardless on any such reasoning as you
described above.
I doubt if the s in compound word in German and Dutch is really always
a genitive s historically, otherwise why is it that also _feminine_
words frequenly have it?
Beispiel: Mitteilungs-Identifikations-Nummer.
>This is a common mistake in German amongst the Germans.
Is it really a mistake?
Peter T. Daniels
> No, we do not have Einkommen_s_steuer. The correct name is
> Einkommensteuer. It's not a tax _of_ the income (this would result in
> the additional genitive "s": "Die Steuer des Einkommens") but _on_ the
> income ("Die Steuer auf das Einkommen", no second "s").
>
> This is a common mistake in German amongst the Germans.
AIUI, this "connecting s" in German compounds has been the subject of
great discussion over the centuries; it's not predictable, and it
apparently has nothing to do with the genitive.
Des Small
Does anyone have a cite for a scholarly treatment from this century or
the end of the last, preferably for large values of "German"?
Des
's Zwedish sprachsgefühl is equipped to handle it
Ekkehard Dengler
Ruud Harmsen schrieb:
No, either is correct. Cf.
http://www.spiegel.de/kultur/zwiebelfisch/0,1518,293186,00.html or "Duden -- Die
deutsche Rechtschreibung": "Einkommenssteuer, fachspr. auch
Einkommensteuer".
Regards,
Ekkehard
Lee Sau Dan
Ruud> I doubt if the s in compound word in German and Dutch is
Ruud> really always a genitive s historically, otherwise why is it
Ruud> that also _feminine_ words frequenly have it? Beispiel:
Ruud> Mitteilungs-Identifikations-Nummer.
When you append words to words ending in -ung and -ion (both are
feminine endings, incidently?), you must add an "s". I still haven't
found an exception.
>> This is a common mistake in German amongst the Germans.
Ruud> Is it really a mistake?
I don't think so. My German-German dictionary "Langenscheidt
Großwörterbuch -- Deutsch als Fremdsprache" has the entry:
Ein.kom.men(s).steuer ...
(where the "." indicates hyphenation boundaries)
So, both forms are possible. Like you, I find the form with the added
"s" more natural. :)
BTW, my dictionary was bought in 2003, and it uses new spellings.
--
Lee Sau Dan
Lee Sau Dan
Peter> AIUI, this "connecting s" in German compounds has been the
Peter> subject of great discussion over the centuries; it's not
Peter> predictable, and it apparently has nothing to do with the
Peter> genitive.
Neither is it totally unpredictable. e.g. that connecting "s" is
always there after "-ung" and "-tion". Ah... I also forgot
"-heit"/"-keit".
And I do think in some cases there is a connection with the genitive.
e.g. Tageszeitung, Monatskarte, Jahreszeit.
Ruud Harmsen
<dan...@informatik.uni-freiburg.de>: in sci.lang:
>When you append words to words ending in -ung and -ion (both are
>feminine endings, incidently?), /
They are.
>/ you must add an "s". I still haven't
>found an exception.
Auch -heit: Einheitspreis, und -keit: Machbarkeitsfrage.
In Dutch too, the cognate endings (usually or always?) require the -s-
when compounded: verbindings-s, verbindingsletter, verrassingsaanval,
schoonheidsprijs, usw..
Ausnahme: belastingdienst (= Steueramt), belastingverlaging,
belastingtarief. Gilt nur für diese Bedeutung dieses Wortes (=Steuer),
denn bij belasting = Last, Belastung, kommt wieder das S.
Oliver Cromm
> Lee Sau Dan wrote:
>
>> But we do have "Einkommenssteuer", where there are 2 consecutive "s"
>> pronounced differently.
>
> No, we do not have Einkommen_s_steuer. The correct name is
> Einkommensteuer. It's not a tax _of_ the income (this would result in
> the additional genitive "s": "Die Steuer des Einkommens") but _on_ the
> income ("Die Steuer auf das Einkommen", no second "s").
>
> This is a common mistake in German amongst the Germans.
Right. Other mistakes commonly made by Germans include
- assuming that the s or other linking element in compounds has a
meaning, where most of the time it is determined by convention and
euphony
- assuming that there is only one "correct" variant of a word, even
across individuals, communities, regions and times, where all of these
are factors that introduce micro-variation
- assuming that the variant used by government offices, university
professors or other professionals are inherently superior to those used
by laymen, where they are only more likely to correctly reflect the
conventional usage within their respective professional community
--
Oliver C.
45n31, 73w34
Temperature: 18.2°C (25 May 2006 12:00 PM EDT)
Oliver Cromm
>>>>>> "Peter" == Peter T Daniels <gram...@worldnet.att.net> writes:
>
> Peter> AIUI, this "connecting s" in German compounds has been the
> Peter> subject of great discussion over the centuries; it's not
> Peter> predictable, and it apparently has nothing to do with the
> Peter> genitive.
>
> Neither is it totally unpredictable. e.g. that connecting "s" is
> always there after "-ung" and "-tion". Ah... I also forgot
> "-heit"/"-keit".
And "-tät"
> And I do think in some cases there is a connection with the genitive.
> e.g. Tageszeitung, Monatskarte, Jahreszeit.
*Morgenszeitung, *Abendszeitung, *Wochenendesticket ...
Anyway, a day can't read, so why should he have a paper?
The real problem is: the semantics of both "genitive" and "compounding"
is nearly empty, both just state "there is some sort of relation".
I think there are some cases where the plural is significant in
compounds. It is at least distinguishing in
Schwesterschule - sister (i.e. partner) school
Schwesternschule - sisters (i.e. nuns) school
or in English, where a "parks supervisor" would be responsible for more
than one park, a "park supervisor" for exactly one.
--
Oliver C.
45n31, 73w34
Temperature: 25.2°C (Humidex: 26) (25 May 2006 5:00 PM EDT)
Lee Sau Dan
>> Neither is it totally unpredictable. e.g. that connecting "s"
>> is always there after "-ung" and "-tion". Ah... I also forgot
>> "-heit"/"-keit".
Oliver> And "-tät"
Yeah! And all of these are feminine endings! I always wonder if
there is a reason behind this.
>> And I do think in some cases there is a connection with the
>> genitive. e.g. Tageszeitung, Monatskarte, Jahreszeit.
Oliver> *Morgenszeitung, *Abendszeitung, *Wochenendesticket ...
Any examples with non-time expressions?
Oliver> Anyway, a day can't read, so why should he have a paper?
Like "soup of the day". A day doesn't eat, either. :)
BTW, "soup of the day" is "Tagesuppe", not "Tagessuppe", nicht wahr?
Oliver> I think there are some cases where the plural is
Oliver> significant in compounds. It is at least distinguishing in
Oliver> Schwesterschule - sister (i.e. partner) school
Oliver> Schwesternschule - sisters (i.e. nuns) school
I have found that many feminine nouns use the plural to form compound,
other than those with the endings listed above.
Oliver> or in English, where a "parks supervisor" would be
Oliver> responsible for more than one park, a "park supervisor"
Oliver> for exactly one.
--
Lee Sau Dan 李守敦 ~{@nJX6X~}
E-mail: dan...@informatik.uni-freiburg.de
Home page: http://www.informatik.uni-freiburg.de/~danlee
Andy
<dan...@informatik.uni-freiburg.de> wrote
[
>
>BTW, "soup of the day" is "Tagesuppe", not "Tagessuppe", nicht wahr?
>
>
advertised their special offer as "Tageshit".
Somehow, it fails to convey their intended meaning to a native English
speaker ...
--
Andy
For Austria & its philately, Lupus, & much else visit
<URL:http://www.kitzbuhel.demon.co.uk/>
Joachim Pense
>
> BTW, "soup of the day" is "Tagesuppe", not "Tagessuppe", nicht wahr?
>
No. It has always been "Tagessuppe".
By the way, "-s-" is not the only connecting element in German.
For example there is -n- (Hall + Bad => "Hallenbad" 'Indoor swimming
pool'),
There is -e- ("Schwein-e-braten" 'roast pork' - there is also a regional
"Schweinsbraten").
And there are even constructions like Huhn + Feder => "Hühnerfeder"
(Chicken Feather), where "Hühner" looks just like a regular plural complete
with umlaut, but still a feather is obviously taken from only one chicken.
It is assumed that the connecting constructions in German have their origin
in old genitives and plurals, but today the specialists agree that they
cannot find a decent rule to describe the usage of these elements.
Joachim
Paul J Kriha
Joachim Pense <sn...@pense-mainz.eu> wrote in message
news:1k7vq63fwpkrx$.am3vdqy8nipu$.dlg@40tude.net...
What about the old PIE connector "-o-".
It exists in constructions borrowed into German.
Is it also used to join up native German words?
pjk
Joachim Pense
Hmm. Perhaps the -e- in Schweinebraten does not go back to a plural after
all but to an -o-? Probably not.
But where has the -o- gone in other IE languages BTW?
What do you use in Slavic languages?
In Latin, they have an -i-, but they weren't so much into combining words
anyway.
Sanskrit? Well, the best bet for any vowel in Indic is an -a-, but I really
don't know.
Joachim
Oliver Cromm
>>>>>> "Oliver" == Oliver Cromm <lispa...@internet.uqam.ca> writes:
>
> >> Neither is it totally unpredictable. e.g. that connecting "s"
> >> is always there after "-ung" and "-tion". Ah... I also forgot
> >> "-heit"/"-keit".
>
> Oliver> And "-tät"
>
> Yeah! And all of these are feminine endings! I always wonder if
> there is a reason behind this.
I'm sure there is, but I'm not sure how to put it yet. An -s on a
masculine or neuter noun isn't so special, though, as it is identical to
the genitive form.
> >> And I do think in some cases there is a connection with the
> >> genitive. e.g. Tageszeitung, Monatskarte, Jahreszeit.
>
> Oliver> *Morgenszeitung, *Abendszeitung, *Wochenendesticket ...
>
> Any examples with non-time expressions?
Examples for what exactly?
> I have found that many feminine nouns use the plural to form compound,
> other than those with the endings listed above.
No big deal: so do masculine and neuter nouns. Actually, the following
list of forms covers the great majority of cases:
- base form (nominative singular)
- base form + s
- plural (nominative plural)
I.e., umlauts or less usual linking elements like -er appear exactly
with those words where they form the plural of the word. Even the -s is
mostly restricted to words that have -s as genitive, with the suffixes
above as the principal exception.
--
Oliver C.
Peter T. Daniels
>
> Am Fri, 26 May 2006 07:58:07 +0800 schrieb Lee Sau Dan:
>
> >
> > BTW, "soup of the day" is "Tagesuppe", not "Tagessuppe", nicht wahr?
> >
>
> No. It has always been "Tagessuppe".
>
> By the way, "-s-" is not the only connecting element in German.
>
> For example there is -n- (Hall + Bad => "Hallenbad" 'Indoor swimming
> pool'),
>
> There is -e- ("Schwein-e-braten" 'roast pork' - there is also a regional
> "Schweinsbraten").
The great old Chicago restaurant Berghoff's serves, alongside its
Sauerbraten, Kalbsbraten.
Helmut Richter
> The great old Chicago restaurant Berghoff's serves, alongside its
> Sauerbraten, Kalbsbraten.
For Schweins- and Rinds-Braten there is also a Northern variant with the
plural-like Form Schweine- and Rinder-.
For Kalbs-, Lamm-, Hammel-, Ochsen-, Puten-, Reh-, Hirsch-, Hasen-,
Kaninchen-, and Wildschwein-Braten, there is only one way to put it. Note
the difference between Schwein and Wildschwein.
Even though chickens may be fried, there is no such thing as a
"Hühnerbraten" but all dishes whose name is a composition with "Huhn" take
the form "Hühner-".
Indeed, the only rule seems to be that there is no rule. See also
http://faql.de/fugenzeichen.html .
--
Helmut Richter
Paul J Kriha
In Slavic, -o- is still very much alive and busy concocting new
words even as we speak.
A Cz dictionary opened at random yields:
mnoh-o-kra't "many times"
mnoh-o-na'sobny' "multiple"
mnoh-o-u'helnik "polygon"
mnoh-o-lety' "many years old" (or mnoh-a-lety')
modr-o-tisk "blueprint"
modr-o-vous "bluebeard"
and so on...
pjk
Lee Sau Dan
Joachim> By the way, "-s-" is not the only connecting element in
Joachim> German.
Yeah, I know.
Joachim> For example there is -n- (Hall + Bad => "Hallenbad"
Joachim> 'Indoor swimming pool'),
Sorry... I think the roots are Halle (f.) and Bad (n.)
As I mentioned in an earlier post, many feminine nouns taken the
plural form when appended. Halle (f. sg.) -> Hallen (pl.) is just one
instance. Since most feminine nouns forms the plural by adding an
-(e)n suffix, I don't consider "n" in this case as a connector.
Joachim> There is -e- ("Schwein-e-braten" 'roast pork' - there is
Joachim> also a regional "Schweinsbraten").
Yeah. That "-e-" is surprising for me. I had to learn this one by
heart.
Joachim> And there are even constructions like Huhn + Feder =>
Joachim> "Hühnerfeder" (Chicken Feather), where "Hühner" looks
Joachim> just like a regular plural complete with umlaut, but
Joachim> still a feather is obviously taken from only one chicken.
As I mentioned above, some nouns take the plural form when appended.
Most cases are for feminine nouns. But there are some neuter nouns
that exhibits this pattern. Huhn is an example.
Joachim> It is assumed that the connecting constructions in German
Joachim> have their origin in old genitives and plurals, but today
Joachim> the specialists agree that they cannot find a decent rule
Joachim> to describe the usage of these elements.
Lee Sau Dan
>> >> And I do think in some cases there is a connection with the
>> >> genitive. e.g. Tageszeitung, Monatskarte, Jahreszeit.
>>
Oliver> *Morgenszeitung, *Abendszeitung, *Wochenendesticket ...
>> Any examples with non-time expressions?
Oliver> Examples for what exactly?
Examples in which the first part appears in genitive form, but is not
a time word.
Oliver> the following list of forms covers the great majority of
Oliver> cases: - base form (nominative singular) - base form + s -
Oliver> plural (nominative plural)
That agrees with my observations so far. Except for Schweine-. :)
Neeraj Mathur
It is a bit misleading to speak of an IE 'connector' -o-. IE formed
compounds by using the stems of its nouns; the Sanskrit evidence suggests
that the stems were always put into their zero grade.
Now, as you know, a significant chunk of IE nouns ended in the thematic
vowel, which was -o/e. This gave the masculines and neuters in -us/um in
Latin (2nd decl), -os/on in Greek (2nd decl), and -ah/am in Sanskrit
(thematic declension). Note that, although we speak of Latin, say, as having
the nom sg masc ending -us, from an IE perspective, the ending is just -s,
and the vowel is a part of the stem.
So what you see as the '-o- connector' of IE is actually just the thematic
vowel, and is a part of the noun stem of the first element being connected.
For example, take Greek 'omophagos', meaning 'eater of raw flesh'. There is
an adjective, which the dictionaries will list as 'om-os, -e, -on' ('raw').
You might then be forgiven for thinking that the compound is formed from
using the stem as the dictionary suggests and a connector, to give
om-o-phagos. However, in IE terms, the stem is omo-, which is put into the
compound. (I should state that I don't remember whether or not omos has an
IE etymology; it's illustrative only.)
The reason that this isn't just a semantic quibble is that the -o will only
appear with thematic nouns that had it in their stem, not in nouns of other
declensions. So take for instance 'aix', 'goat', whose stem, after you drop
the nominative -s, is 'aig'. If -o- were an IE connector, we would expect to
find *aig-o-polos for 'goatherd'; in fact the word is aipolos < *aigpolos,
formed from the stem. In the later language, when the stems had been
completely resegmented, it does start to act like a connector; hence there
is a late form 'aigoboskos'.
IE does have a handful of compounds in which the first element appears to be
inflected; thus there are Greek names like Diiphilos < *diwei-philos, 'dear
to Zeus', with *diwei the old dative form of Zeus.
The apparent -i- connector in Latin is just the thematic vowel -o of
thematic stems again; Latin went through a stage of vowel weakening, whereby
any short vowel in an open syllable became i, and in a closed syllable, e or
u.
In Sanskrit, again, these rules apply: compounds are formed by taking stems
in their reduced or zero-grade forms. In practice, this means that a huge
amount of stems end in -a, not just the thematic ones (where IE o > Skt e),
but also in things like -n stems, very often. This is because the zero grade
of n-stem suffixes like -man (IE -men) had a vocalic n (IE *-mn), which
regularly became -a in Skt also. Thus rajadharma 'dharma of kings', from
raja < rajn, zero grade of rajan, + dharma. There is of course opportunity
here for confusion, and in the later language especially it is clear that
some compounds where one member was an n-stem were reinterpreted as though
they were thematic.
Now, Germanic. The thematic vowel should appear as -a in Proto Germanic, but
it seems to get dropped all over the place in the attested languages, no
doubt due to loss of short vowels in unstressed syllables. I don't know
enough about Germanic to be certain, but I'd be very, very surprised if the
thematic vowel has managed to survive for so long there.
Neeraj Mathur
me
> Am Fri, 26 May 2006 23:25:04 +1200 schrieb Paul J Kriha:
>> Joachim Pense <sn...@pense-mainz.eu> wrote ...
>>> Am Fri, 26 May 2006 07:58:07 +0800 schrieb Lee Sau Dan:
>>> By the way, "-s-" is not the only connecting element in German.
>>>
>>> For example there is -n- (Hall + Bad => "Hallenbad" 'Indoor swimming
>>> pool'),
>>>
>>> It is assumed that the connecting constructions in German have their
>>> origin in old genitives and plurals, but today the specialists agree
>>> that they cannot find a decent rule to describe the usage of these
>>> elements.
>>>
>>> Joachim
>>
>> What about the old PIE connector "-o-".
>> It exists in constructions borrowed into German.
>> Is it also used to join up native German words?
>
> Hmm. Perhaps the -e- in Schweinebraten does not go back to a plural after
> all but to an -o-? Probably not.
>
> But where has the -o- gone in other IE languages BTW?
>
> What do you use in Slavic languages?
>
> In Latin, they have an -i-, but they weren't so much into combining words
> anyway.
>
> Sanskrit?
The Sanskrit for red-haired would be [rudh@lo:m@n] (rudh* = red, lom*/rom* =
hair/fur & [@n] is a suffix serving the same function as the <ed> in the
English). Are this [@n] suffix and the ones in German Hallen, English
leaden and Dravidian tekkan (spelt Deccan in English) meaning southern,
from tekku meaning south, certainly all of different provenance?
> Well, the best bet for any vowel in Indic is an -a-, but I
> really don't know.
There was conceivably some Indic dialect whose /a/ had an allophone of [i"],
although perhaps not in contexts where connectors occurred. In Hindi, /a/
is realized as [V]/[a"]/[a], [E], [@] & [i"].