German commercial phonation, what is it?

Ruud Harmsen

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Jun 15, 2012, 1:50:36 PM6/15/12

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German commercials (and formerly also p**n movies) sometimes use
something that is phonetically probably a 'phonation'. I never hear
this in normal German -- and I'm glad about that, because I don't like
the sound of it at all. I find it exaggerated and high-falutin.

(That last word is from the dictionary, for Dutch 'aanstellerig'.
Never seen this 'high-falutin' before myself, until today.)

Today I encountered this speech style again in the video in the bottom
of this real estate site: http://www.vieten-immobilien.de/
(When isolating the video, it no longer works.)

Can anybody identify this in articulatory terms, or point me to an IPA
symbol?

I cannot identify the instance or occurences in the video, so I have
to rely on written-out fragments:

- (Skip the two men, they don't do it.)

- von sieben mit einander vernetzten Immobilien-**Börsen**.

- unsere WIB24-**Part**ner setzen neue **Maßstäbe**.
(and the word **Part**ner everywhere else too)

- Bei den WIB24-**Part**ner erhalten Sie Ihren individuellen
Komplett-**Ser**vice.

- Sie sprechen mit einem Ex**per**ten

- Unsere Kompe**tenz** ist Ihr **Vorteil*

--
Ruud Harmsen, http://rudhar.com

Nathan Sanders

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Jun 15, 2012, 3:31:36 PM6/15/12

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In article <57tmt790h4edohj2h...@4ax.com>,

It sounds like mild breathy voice (murmur), which is represented in
the IPA by double dots under the letter, or with a superscript hooktop
h when it's a plosive with breathy release.

Nathan

--
Department of Linguistics
Swarthmore College
http://sanders.phonologist.org/

Peter T. Daniels

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Jun 15, 2012, 5:02:01 PM6/15/12

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On Jun 15, 3:31 pm, Nathan Sanders <sand...@alum.mit.edu> wrote:
> In article <57tmt790h4edohj2h1d3c7m0s2h2cs9...@4ax.com>,

It's exactly the same phenomenon Ruud was complaining about when he
first(?) appeared here, only then he was accusing Valley Girls of
doing it. Whether breathy or creaky, unless it's part of your
language, it's a sign you don't breathe properly.

Looking to buy property in Cologne?

Ruud Harmsen

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Jun 16, 2012, 3:20:16 AM6/16/12

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"Peter T. Daniels" <gram...@verizon.net> schreef/wrote:

>> It sounds like mild breathy voice (murmur), which is represented in
>> the IPA by double dots under the letter, or with a superscript hooktop
>> h when it's a plosive with breathy release.
>
>It's exactly the same phenomenon Ruud was complaining about when he
>first(?) appeared here, only then he was accusing Valley Girls of
>doing it.

No, it isn't. The similarities are:
- it may be used in the same position in the sentence,
- I almost equally dislike it,
but phonetically, it is very different.

I wonder if you really listened to the video, and have heard the
American phonomenon I wrote about? The difference in sound is very
conspicuous.

>Whether breathy or creaky, unless it's part of your
>language, it's a sign you don't breathe properly.
>
>Looking to buy property in Cologne?

No, some 60 or 80 km to its southwest, maybe. For a long time already.
Prices are about a third of what they are in the Netherlands.
http://rudhar.com/index/duitmakl.htm

Peter T. Daniels

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Jun 16, 2012, 9:01:50 AM6/16/12

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On Jun 16, 3:20 am, Ruud Harmsen <r...@rudhar.com> wrote:
> "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...@verizon.net> schreef/wrote:

>
> >> It sounds like mild breathy voice (murmur), which is represented in
> >> the IPA by double dots under the letter, or with a superscript hooktop
> >> h when it's a plosive with breathy release.
>
> >It's exactly the same phenomenon Ruud was complaining about when he
> >first(?) appeared here, only then he was accusing Valley Girls of
> >doing it.
>
> No, it isn't. The similarities are:
> - it may be used in the same position in the sentence,
> - I almost equally dislike it,
> but phonetically, it is very different.
>
> I wonder if you really listened to the video, and have heard the
> American phonomenon I wrote about? The difference in sound is very
> conspicuous.

Inadequate breathing is inadequate breathing. Does any language that
uses breathy-voice also use creaky-voice, or vice versa?

If it were part of the linguistic system you probably wouldn't even
notice it, because its occurrence would be completely contrilled.
Hindi doesn't sound "breathy" to you, and Khmer doesn't sound "creaky"
to you, do they?

(Hmm, in a compound yes/no question, the tag question is in the
plural.)

> >Whether breathy or creaky, unless it's part of your
> >language, it's a sign you don't breathe properly.
>
> >Looking to buy property in Cologne?
>
> No, some 60 or 80 km to its southwest, maybe. For a long time already.
> Prices are about a third of what they are in the Netherlands.http://rudhar.com/index/duitmakl.htm

Yet another problem created by the EU. Now there are no borders ...
soon there will be borders again.

Message has been deleted

Ruud Harmsen

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Jun 16, 2012, 3:18:02 PM6/16/12

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"Peter T. Daniels" <gram...@verizon.net> schreef/wrote:

>> >It's exactly the same phenomenon Ruud was complaining about when he
>> >first(?) appeared here, only then he was accusing Valley Girls of
>> >doing it.
>>
>> No, it isn't. The similarities are:
>> - it may be used in the same position in the sentence,
>> - I almost equally dislike it,
>> but phonetically, it is very different.
>>
>> I wonder if you really listened to the video, and have heard the
>> American phonomenon I wrote about? The difference in sound is very
>> conspicuous.
>
>Inadequate breathing is inadequate breathing. Does any language that
>uses breathy-voice also use creaky-voice, or vice versa?

You said "exactly the same phenomenon", but now you distinguish
breathy and creaky. I find it somewhat hard to follow your reasoning.

>If it were part of the linguistic system you probably wouldn't even
>notice it, because its occurrence would be completely contrilled.

I don't understand what you mean. (What does "contrilled" mean?)

>Hindi doesn't sound "breathy" to you, and Khmer doesn't sound "creaky"
>to you, do they?

I don't know, I didn't hear those languages often enough.

>> >Whether breathy or creaky, unless it's part of your
>> >language, it's a sign you don't breathe properly.

If it's done for effect, as is the case in German, does that mean it
"is part of the language"?

>> >Looking to buy property in Cologne?
>>
>> No, some 60 or 80 km to its southwest, maybe. For a long time already.
>> Prices are about a third of what they are in the Netherlands.http://rudhar.com/index/duitmakl.htm
>
>Yet another problem created by the EU. Now there are no borders ...
>soon there will be borders again.

I don't understand what you mean by that.

I can think of several factors to explain housing price differences
between NL and DE, but none of them involves the EU.

1) Mortgage interest is partially tax deductible in NL, not so in DE.

2) The population is still growing in NL, and stable or shrinking in
DE.

3) I often compare densely populated areas of NL with scarcely
popluated areas in DE, which isn't fair. (But the differences,
although smaller, remain if you correct for that, probably as a result
of 1) and 2).

Well, but this is getting very much off-topic for sci.lang.

Ruud Harmsen

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Jun 16, 2012, 3:42:01 PM6/16/12

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Wolfgang Schwanke <s...@sig.nature> schreef/wrote:

>Ruud Harmsen <r...@rudhar.com> wrote in
>news:57tmt790h4edohj2h...@4ax.com:

>
>> German commercials (and formerly also p**n movies)
>

>So tell us, how would you know about that? :)

I was waiting for that question. Shall we say I know it only from
short persiflages? (;-)

>> sometimes use
>> something that is phonetically probably a 'phonation'. I never hear
>> this in normal German -- and I'm glad about that, because I don't like
>> the sound of it at all. I find it exaggerated and high-falutin.
>

>I can only assume it's part of the speaker training for adverts and
>overdubs of cheapo films. Or there are studios who think it's cool for
>some reason. Or are they trying to imitate American television
>speakers? It gets extremely on my nervers as well.

American don't do it, and it's probably much older than wide-spread
American influence on Germany.

>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OjmjS23bEBM
>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OakJy6_jt9A

Ruud Harmsen

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Jun 16, 2012, 3:53:43 PM6/16/12

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Wolfgang Schwanke <s...@sig.nature> schreef/wrote:

>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OjmjS23bEBM

Ja, fabelhaft!!

>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OakJy6_jt9A

I thought I had learned a new German word, Grundsprecher(in), but I
misunderstood, it is simply (Syn)chronsprecherin.

Ruud Harmsen

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Jun 16, 2012, 4:04:06 PM6/16/12

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-I8Yrd0cOyo
Lisa Feller

The going idea in the Netherlands is that German have no sense of
humour.

Peter T. Daniels

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Jun 16, 2012, 4:29:02 PM6/16/12

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On Jun 16, 3:18 pm, Ruud Harmsen <r...@rudhar.com> wrote:
> "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...@verizon.net> schreef/wrote:

>
> >> >It's exactly the same phenomenon Ruud was complaining about when he
> >> >first(?) appeared here, only then he was accusing Valley Girls of
> >> >doing it.
>
> >> No, it isn't. The similarities are:
> >> - it may be used in the same position in the sentence,
> >> - I almost equally dislike it,
> >> but phonetically, it is very different.
>
> >> I wonder if you really listened to the video, and have heard the
> >> American phonomenon I wrote about? The difference in sound is very
> >> conspicuous.
>
> >Inadequate breathing is inadequate breathing. Does any language that
> >uses breathy-voice also use creaky-voice, or vice versa?
>
> You said "exactly the same phenomenon", but now you distinguish
> breathy and creaky. I find it somewhat hard to follow your reasoning.
>
> >If it were part of the linguistic system you probably wouldn't even
> >notice it, because its occurrence would be completely contrilled.
>
> I don't understand what you mean. (What does "contrilled" mean?)
>
> >Hindi doesn't sound "breathy" to you, and Khmer doesn't sound "creaky"
> >to you, do they?
>
> I don't know, I didn't hear those languages often enough.
>
> >> >Whether breathy or creaky, unless it's part of your
> >> >language, it's a sign you don't breathe properly.
>
> If it's done for effect, as is the case in German, does that mean it
> "is part of the language"?

How do you know it's "done for effect"? When you complained about it
in Valley Girl, it proved to be simply an unmarked feature of the
dialect.

> >> >Looking to buy property in Cologne?
>
> >> No, some 60 or 80 km to its southwest, maybe. For a long time already.
> >> Prices are about a third of what they are in the Netherlands.http://rudhar.com/index/duitmakl.htm
>
> >Yet another problem created by the EU. Now there are no borders ...
> >soon there will be borders again.
>
> I don't understand what you mean by that.

How long do you think Germany is going to want to keep supporting
everyone else's currency? (They're refusing to do so now, in fact.)

> I can think of several factors to explain housing price differences
> between NL and DE, but none of them involves the EU.
>
> 1) Mortgage interest is partially tax deductible in NL, not so in DE.
>
> 2) The population is still growing in NL, and stable or shrinking in
> DE.
>
> 3) I often compare densely populated areas of NL with scarcely
> popluated areas in DE, which isn't fair. (But the differences,
> although smaller, remain if you correct for that, probably as a result
> of 1) and 2).
>
> Well, but this is getting very much off-topic for sci.lang.

Nu?

Trond Engen

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Jun 16, 2012, 5:04:39 PM6/16/12

to

Peter T. Daniels:

> On Jun 16, 3:20 am, Ruud Harmsen <r...@rudhar.com> wrote:
>
>> "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...@verizon.net> schreef/wrote:
>>

>>> Looking to buy property in Cologne?
>>
>> No, some 60 or 80 km to its southwest, maybe. For a long time
>> already. Prices are about a third of what they are in the
>> Netherlands.http://rudhar.com/index/duitmakl.htm
>
> Yet another problem created by the EU. Now there are no borders ...
> soon there will be borders again.

1. The common market and the common currency don't lead to increased
price differences. What it has done is reduce the differences between
north and south to a level no longer sustainable in the south when
domestic demand in general and foreign demand for holidays and property
plummeted after the crash.

2. There's hardly any difference between Germany and Holland in this
respect. Whatever happens with the Euro and the EU, renewed borders
between the core countries isn't one of them.

--
Trond Engen

Trond Engen

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Jun 16, 2012, 5:41:09 PM6/16/12

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Peter T. Daniels:

> On Jun 16, 3:18 pm, Ruud Harmsen<r...@rudhar.com> wrote:
>
>> "Peter T. Daniels"<gramma...@verizon.net> schreef/wrote:
>>

>>>>> Looking to buy property in Cologne?
>>>>
>>>> No, some 60 or 80 km to its southwest, maybe. For a long time
>>>> already. Prices are about a third of what they are in the
>>>> Netherlands.http://rudhar.com/index/duitmakl.htm
>>>
>>> Yet another problem created by the EU. Now there are no borders ...
>>> soon there will be borders again.
>>
>> I don't understand what you mean by that.
>
> How long do you think Germany is going to want to keep supporting
> everyone else's currency? (They're refusing to do so now, in fact.)

For as long as it takes? "Supporting everyone else's currency" is what
keeps German exports high and unemployment manageable in spite of
suppressed domestic demand. In case of a Euro breakup the German
currency would rise in a blink and the whole wonder of the pre-recession
decade would vaporize.

But that has nothing to do with Dutch property prices. After a breakup
the Dutch currency would rise just as much as the German.

>> I can think of several factors to explain housing price differences
>> between NL and DE, but none of them involves the EU.
>>
>> 1) Mortgage interest is partially tax deductible in NL, not so in DE.
>>
>> 2) The population is still growing in NL, and stable or shrinking in
>> DE.
>>
>> 3) I often compare densely populated areas of NL with scarcely
>> popluated areas in DE, which isn't fair. (But the differences,
>> although smaller, remain if you correct for that, probably as a
>> result of 1) and 2).
>>
>> Well, but this is getting very much off-topic for sci.lang.
>
> Nu?

Yes, sorry.

--
Trond Engen

benl...@ihug.co.nz

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Jun 16, 2012, 6:25:01 PM6/16/12

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On Jun 17, 1:01 am, "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...@verizon.net> wrote:
> On Jun 16, 3:20 am, Ruud Harmsen <r...@rudhar.com> wrote:
>

> > "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...@verizon.net> schreef/wrote:
>
> > >> It sounds like mild breathy voice (murmur), which is represented in
> > >> the IPA by double dots under the letter, or with a superscript hooktop
> > >> h when it's a plosive with breathy release.
>
> > >It's exactly the same phenomenon Ruud was complaining about when he
> > >first(?) appeared here, only then he was accusing Valley Girls of
> > >doing it.
>
> > No, it isn't. The similarities are:
> > - it may be used in the same position in the sentence,
> > - I almost equally dislike it,
> > but phonetically, it is very different.
>
> > I wonder if you really listened to the video, and have heard the
> > American phonomenon I wrote about? The difference in sound is very
> > conspicuous.
>
> Inadequate breathing is inadequate breathing.

Wisdom worthy of comparison with "There are only two kinds of
English...".

Brian M. Scott

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Jun 17, 2012, 2:39:50 AM6/17/12

to

On Sat, 16 Jun 2012 06:01:50 -0700 (PDT), "Peter T. Daniels"
<gram...@verizon.net> wrote in
<news:29da75d6-a561-4102...@t20g2000yqn.googlegroups.com>
in sci.lang:

> On Jun 16, 3:20 am, Ruud Harmsen <r...@rudhar.com> wrote:

>> "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...@verizon.net> schreef/wrote:

>>>> It sounds like mild breathy voice (murmur), which is represented in
>>>> the IPA by double dots under the letter, or with a superscript hooktop
>>>> h when it's a plosive with breathy release.

>>>It's exactly the same phenomenon Ruud was complaining about when he
>>>first(?) appeared here, only then he was accusing Valley Girls of
>>>doing it.

>> No, it isn't. The similarities are:
>> - it may be used in the same position in the sentence,
>> - I almost equally dislike it,
>> but phonetically, it is very different.

>> I wonder if you really listened to the video, and have heard the
>> American phonomenon I wrote about? The difference in sound is very
>> conspicuous.

> Inadequate breathing is inadequate breathing.

It has nothing to do with inadequate breathing.

> Does any language that uses breathy-voice also use
> creaky-voice, or vice versa?

Jalapa Mazatec has a four-way contrast for vowels: oral,
nasal, creaky, breathy.

> If it were part of the linguistic system you probably
> wouldn't even notice it, because its occurrence would be
> completely contrilled. Hindi doesn't sound "breathy" to
> you, and Khmer doesn't sound "creaky" to you, do they?

> (Hmm, in a compound yes/no question, the tag question is
> in the plural.)

That kind of compound yes/no question doesn't exist. 'Hindi
doesn't sound "breathy" to you, does it, or Khmer "creaky"?'

Ruud Harmsen

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Jun 17, 2012, 3:28:49 AM6/17/12

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"Peter T. Daniels" <gram...@verizon.net> schreef/wrote:

>On Jun 16, 3:18 pm, Ruud Harmsen <r...@rudhar.com> wrote:
>> "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...@verizon.net> schreef/wrote:

>> >If it were part of the linguistic system you probably wouldn't even
>> >notice it, because its occurrence would be completely contrilled.
>>
>> I don't understand what you mean. (What does "contrilled" mean?)

Controlled! Just a typo. I really thought it was a word I didn't know,
but I didn't feel like looking it up yesterday.

>> If it's done for effect, as is the case in German, does that mean it
>> "is part of the language"?
>
>How do you know it's "done for effect"?

Context: commercials and 80s p**n movies.

Here, it = breathy voice, not breathy.

>When you complained about it
>in Valley Girl, it proved to be simply an unmarked feature of the
>dialect.

It's not only heard is Silicon Valley, but everywhere in the US and
increasingly elsewhere in the anglophone world. (And indepently also
in Hungarian.)

Here, it = creaky voice, not breathy.

>> I don't understand what you mean by that.
>
>How long do you think Germany is going to want to keep supporting
>everyone else's currency? (They're refusing to do so now, in fact.)

It's not a currency crisis, it's a debt crisis.

Today, Greece will probably sign its own death sentence, i.e. it'll go
bankrupt. What being in or out of the zone has to do with that, nobody
ever explained, or even asked. In drachmes, it'll only go faster: no
party on financial markets will lend them mony in a currency that is
likely to devaluate, unless at insane interest rates.

>> Well, but this is getting very much off-topic for sci.lang.
>
>Nu?

Ja, nu wel, en eerder ook al.

(Ja, jetzt schon, und vorher auch schon.)

Peter T. Daniels

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Jun 17, 2012, 7:27:53 AM6/17/12

to

On Jun 17, 2:39 am, "Brian M. Scott" <b.sc...@csuohio.edu> wrote:
> On Sat, 16 Jun 2012 06:01:50 -0700 (PDT), "Peter T. Daniels"

> <gramma...@verizon.net> wrote in

> <news:29da75d6-a561-4102...@t20g2000yqn.googlegroups.com>
> in sci.lang:

> > On Jun 16, 3:20 am, Ruud Harmsen <r...@rudhar.com> wrote:
> >> "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...@verizon.net> schreef/wrote:
> >>>> It sounds like mild breathy voice (murmur), which is represented in
> >>>> the IPA by double dots under the letter, or with a superscript hooktop
> >>>> h when it's a plosive with breathy release.
> >>>It's exactly the same phenomenon Ruud was complaining about when he
> >>>first(?) appeared here, only then he was accusing Valley Girls of
> >>>doing it.
> >> No, it isn't. The similarities are:
> >> - it may be used in the same position in the sentence,
> >> - I almost equally dislike it,
> >> but phonetically, it is very different.
> >> I wonder if you really listened to the video, and have heard the
> >> American phonomenon I wrote about? The difference in sound is very
> >> conspicuous.
> > Inadequate breathing is inadequate breathing.
>
> It has nothing to do with inadequate breathing.
>
> > Does any language that uses breathy-voice also use
> > creaky-voice, or vice versa?
>
> Jalapa Mazatec has a four-way contrast for vowels: oral,
> nasal, creaky, breathy.

Sez who? Provide and pronounce a minimal quartet.

> > If it were part of the linguistic system you probably
> > wouldn't even notice it, because its occurrence would be
> > completely contrilled. Hindi doesn't sound "breathy" to
> > you, and Khmer doesn't sound "creaky" to you, do they?
> > (Hmm, in a compound yes/no question, the tag question is
> > in the plural.)
>
> That kind of compound yes/no question doesn't exist. 'Hindi

> doesn't sound "breathy" to you, does it, or Khmer "creaky"?'-

Of course it does. I just used it.

Peter T. Daniels

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Jun 17, 2012, 7:30:44 AM6/17/12

to

On Jun 17, 3:28 am, Ruud Harmsen <r...@rudhar.com> wrote:
> "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...@verizon.net> schreef/wrote:
> >On Jun 16, 3:18 pm, Ruud Harmsen <r...@rudhar.com> wrote:
> >> "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...@verizon.net> schreef/wrote:

> >> >If it were part of the linguistic system you probably wouldn't even
> >> >notice it, because its occurrence would be completely contrilled.
>
> >> I don't understand what you mean. (What does "contrilled" mean?)
>
> Controlled! Just a typo. I really thought it was a word I didn't know,
> but I didn't feel like looking it up yesterday.
>
> >> If it's done for effect, as is the case in German, does that mean it
> >> "is part of the language"?
>
> >How do you know it's "done for effect"?
>
> Context: commercials and 80s p**n movies.
>
> Here, it = breathy voice, not breathy.

Eh?

> >When you complained about it
> >in Valley Girl, it proved to be simply an unmarked feature of the
> >dialect.
>
> It's not only heard is Silicon Valley, but everywhere in the US and
> increasingly elsewhere in the anglophone world.

Of course! It's a prestige dialect.

Ruud Harmsen

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Jun 17, 2012, 8:07:27 AM6/17/12

to

"Peter T. Daniels" <gram...@verizon.net> schreef/wrote:

>On Jun 17, 3:28 am, Ruud Harmsen <r...@rudhar.com> wrote:
>> "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...@verizon.net> schreef/wrote:
>> >On Jun 16, 3:18 pm, Ruud Harmsen <r...@rudhar.com> wrote:
>> >> "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...@verizon.net> schreef/wrote:
>
>> >> >If it were part of the linguistic system you probably wouldn't even
>> >> >notice it, because its occurrence would be completely contrilled.
>>
>> >> I don't understand what you mean. (What does "contrilled" mean?)
>>
>> Controlled! Just a typo. I really thought it was a word I didn't know,
>> but I didn't feel like looking it up yesterday.
>>
>> >> If it's done for effect, as is the case in German, does that mean it
>> >> "is part of the language"?
>>
>> >How do you know it's "done for effect"?
>>
>> Context: commercials and 80s p**n movies.
>>
>> Here, it = breathy voice, not breathy.
>
>Eh?

Breathy, not creaky. Don't read what I write, read what I mean. Read
my thoughts.

>> >When you complained about it
>> >in Valley Girl, it proved to be simply an unmarked feature of the
>> >dialect.
>>
>> It's not only heard is Silicon Valley, but everywhere in the US and
>> increasingly elsewhere in the anglophone world.
>
>Of course! It's a prestige dialect.

Prestige? To creak is prestigious? I'm afraid, your right, but it's
difficult to understand how such a thing could ever happen.

>> (And indepently also
>> in Hungarian.)
>>
>> Here, it = creaky voice, not breathy.

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Jun 17, 2012, 3:53:19 PM6/17/12

to

In article
<29da75d6-a561-4102...@t20g2000yqn.googlegroups.com>,

"Peter T. Daniels" <gram...@verizon.net> wrote:

> Does any language that
> uses breathy-voice also use creaky-voice, or vice versa?

Aside from , which Brian mentioned, there's also:

San Lucas Quiavini Zapotec
http://homes.chass.utoronto.ca/~cla-acl/actes2008/CLA2008_Chavez-Peon.p
df

Chong
http://www.seedyroad.com/academics/lsa94.pdf

Hmong
http://www.linguistics.ucla.edu/people/grads/mgarellek/Garellek_2012_JP
hon.pdf

!Xoo
http://homepages.inf.ed.ac.uk/jcb/Research/mfm09talk-handout-6up.pdf

Peter T. Daniels

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Jun 17, 2012, 5:00:59 PM6/17/12

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On Jun 17, 3:24 pm, Nathan Sanders <sand...@alum.mit.edu> wrote:
> In article

> <a43e3d8e-0398-4f41-9b93-45bf4f54a...@h41g2000yqm.googlegroups.com>,

Perhaps not to be phonemicized as 3 x 5 = 15 different vowels, but as
V, hV, and ?V (and any can also be nasal). They have no examples at
all of ?, though it's in their consonant chart, and only three of h
(in the chart of ballistic vs. controlled).

Peter T. Daniels

unread,

Jun 17, 2012, 5:08:56 PM6/17/12

to

On Jun 17, 3:53 pm, Nathan Sanders <sand...@alum.mit.edu> wrote:
> In article

> <29da75d6-a561-4102-8abe-26713c587...@t20g2000yqn.googlegroups.com>,

> "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...@verizon.net> wrote:
>
> > Does any language that
> > uses breathy-voice also use creaky-voice, or vice versa?
>
> Aside from , which Brian mentioned, there's also:
>
> San Lucas Quiavini Zapotechttp://homes.chass.utoronto.ca/~cla-acl/actes2008/CLA2008_Chavez-Peon.p
> df
>
> Chonghttp://www.seedyroad.com/academics/lsa94.pdf
>
> Hmonghttp://www.linguistics.ucla.edu/people/grads/mgarellek/Garellek_2012_JP
> hon.pdf
>
> !Xoohttp://homepages.inf.ed.ac.uk/jcb/Research/mfm09talk-handout-6up.pdf

Even within those very papers, the authors suggest there are not
separate V, brV, crV phonemes, but coarticulations.

The one you lable "Hmong" in fact is interested in the (thoroughly
nonsignificant, i.e. nonphonemic) predictable breathiness and
creakiness _in English_.

António Marques

unread,

Jun 17, 2012, 7:41:44 PM6/17/12

to

Peter T. Daniels wrote (17-06-2012 19:08):
> On Jun 17, 12:50 pm, António Marques<antonio...@sapo.pt> wrote:
>
>> I've followed these 'creaky'/'breathy' voice threads, listened to the
>> youtubes, and I *still* have no idea what you're all talking about.
>
> Do you have Henry Kissinger in your mind's ear? That's "creaky."
>
> Do you have Marilyn Monroe in your mind's ear? That's "breathy."

See? Was it so hard?
I didn't know that was part of their speech, as opposed to something they
did at times.

> In some languages, those phenomena have been incorporated into the set
> of phonetic features (marked with<h> in transliterations of Indic
> languages; not generally noted in transcriptions of Khmer [Cambodian]
> words, but in Khmer orthography it's notated).
>
> In Ruud's examples, they aren't nearly so pervasive as in those two
> quintessential examples.

I never thought those phenomena would be incorporated into the set of
phonetic features of any language.
I wonder if falsetto is.

> As for why Valley Girl is a "prestige" dialect, you might as well ask
> why Lindsey Lohan and Kim Kardashian are "celebrities."

I can more or less see how the former got there, not the latter, and of
course I can't understand how either remains on the spotlight.

> Nonetheless,
> they are, and people like to imitate celebrities, even though
> linguistically they do so for the most part unconsciously.
>
> (Just as when you move to a differnt dialect region of your own
> language, your speech assimilates to it in a fairly short time -- not
> so much that you can't be identified as an outsider, but sufficiently
> that when you go home, they tell you you have the accent of the place
> you were living.)

Indeed. Some people assimilate quite quickly.

benl...@ihug.co.nz

unread,

Jun 17, 2012, 8:55:37 PM6/17/12

to

On Jun 18, 12:07 am, Ruud Harmsen <r...@rudhar.com> wrote:
> "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...@verizon.net> schreef/wrote:
>

> >On Jun 17, 3:28 am, Ruud Harmsen <r...@rudhar.com> wrote:
> >> "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...@verizon.net> schreef/wrote:
> >> >On Jun 16, 3:18 pm, Ruud Harmsen <r...@rudhar.com> wrote:
> >> >> "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...@verizon.net> schreef/wrote:
>
> >> >> >If it were part of the linguistic system you probably wouldn't even
> >> >> >notice it, because its occurrence would be completely contrilled.
>
> >> >> I don't understand what you mean. (What does "contrilled" mean?)
>
> >> Controlled! Just a typo. I really thought it was a word I didn't know,
> >> but I didn't feel like looking it up yesterday.
>
> >> >> If it's done for effect, as is the case in German, does that mean it
> >> >> "is part of the language"?
>
> >> >How do you know it's "done for effect"?
>
> >> Context: commercials and 80s p**n movies.
>
> >> Here, it = breathy voice, not breathy.
>
> >Eh?
>
> Breathy, not creaky. Don't read what I write, read what I mean. Read
> my thoughts.
>
> >> >When you complained about it
> >> >in Valley Girl, it proved to be simply an unmarked feature of the
> >> >dialect.
>
> >> It's not only heard is Silicon Valley, but everywhere in the US and
> >> increasingly elsewhere in the anglophone world.

Just to be clear here -- the "Valley" in "Valley Girl" is not Silicon
Valley (and Silicon is not a reference to breast implants), but the
San Fernando Valley, north of Los Angeles.

> >Of course! It's a prestige dialect.
>
> Prestige? To creak is prestigious? I'm afraid, your right, but it's
> difficult to understand how such a thing could ever happen.

I think "prestige" is questionable here, unless restricted to certain
age/gender subgroups. But creak occurs in many people's speech quite
independent of this (relatively) recent fashion. Peter has already
mentioned Henry Kissinger. Our former Prime Minister Robert Muldoon
was well known for it. It may be just a by-product of the speaker's
physiology, or it may be 'done for effect', as you put it, i.e. a
vocal mannerism, which can be imitated by people who want to be like
the originators.

Nathan Sanders

unread,

Jun 17, 2012, 9:01:37 PM6/17/12

to

In article
<7f55bdda-62b4-4ff2...@n42g2000yqm.googlegroups.com>,

"Peter T. Daniels" <gram...@verizon.net> wrote:

> On Jun 17, 3:53 pm, Nathan Sanders <sand...@alum.mit.edu> wrote:
> > In article
> > <29da75d6-a561-4102-8abe-26713c587...@t20g2000yqn.googlegroups.com>,
> > "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...@verizon.net> wrote:
> >
> > > Does any language that
> > > uses breathy-voice also use creaky-voice, or vice versa?
> >
> > Aside from , which Brian mentioned, there's also:
> >
> > San Lucas Quiavini
> > Zapotechttp://homes.chass.utoronto.ca/~cla-acl/actes2008/CLA2008_Chavez-Peon
> > .p
> > df
> >
> > Chonghttp://www.seedyroad.com/academics/lsa94.pdf
> >
> > Hmonghttp://www.linguistics.ucla.edu/people/grads/mgarellek/Garellek_2012_JP
> > hon.pdf
> >
> > !Xoohttp://homepages.inf.ed.ac.uk/jcb/Research/mfm09talk-handout-6up.pdf
>
> Even within those very papers, the authors suggest there are not
> separate V, brV, crV phonemes, but coarticulations.

San Lucas Quiavini Zapotec: "Moreover, this language also presents
contrastive phonation types [modal, breathy, and creaky]"

> The one you lable "Hmong" in fact is interested in the (thoroughly
> nonsignificant, i.e. nonphonemic) predictable breathiness and
> creakiness _in English_.

"Whereas English only shows non-modal phonation due to coarticulation,
Hmong contrasts both breathy and creaky vowels with modal ones."

Nathan Sanders

unread,

Jun 17, 2012, 9:20:47 PM6/17/12

to

In article
<45b1dbdf-12ce-40c2...@30g2000yqi.googlegroups.com>,

"Peter T. Daniels" <gram...@verizon.net> wrote:

You can do all sorts of crazy things if your theory allows for
sufficiently bizarre abstractions away from the measurable reality of
the actual words of the language.

Everett phonemecizes Piraha [h] as /ki/, so that he can reduce the
number of phonemes by one.

> (and any can also be nasal). They have no examples at
> all of ?, though it's in their consonant chart, and only three of h
> (in the chart of ballistic vs. controlled).

I trust Silverman, Blankenship, Kirk, and especially Ladefoged when
they say "contrast".

Peter T. Daniels

unread,

Jun 17, 2012, 11:17:03 PM6/17/12

to

On Jun 17, 9:20 pm, Nathan Sanders <sand...@alum.mit.edu> wrote:
> In article

> <45b1dbdf-12ce-40c2-803b-21c98aa2b...@30g2000yqi.googlegroups.com>,

Reducing by 1 is different from reducing 15 to 7.

> > (and any can also be nasal). They have no examples at
> > all of ?, though it's in their consonant chart, and only three of h
> > (in the chart of ballistic vs. controlled).
>
> I trust Silverman, Blankenship, Kirk, and especially Ladefoged when
> they say "contrast".

Too bad they didn't provide minimal pairs.

Ladefoged is the last-named author (and they're not alphabetical).
What exposure did he have to the speakers?

Peter T. Daniels

unread,

Jun 17, 2012, 11:20:38 PM6/17/12

to

On Jun 17, 9:01 pm, Nathan Sanders <sand...@alum.mit.edu> wrote:
> In article

> <7f55bdda-62b4-4ff2-862b-9f630ab1b...@n42g2000yqm.googlegroups.com>,

> "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...@verizon.net> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
> > On Jun 17, 3:53 pm, Nathan Sanders <sand...@alum.mit.edu> wrote:
> > > In article
> > > <29da75d6-a561-4102-8abe-26713c587...@t20g2000yqn.googlegroups.com>,
> > > "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...@verizon.net> wrote:
>
> > > > Does any language that
> > > > uses breathy-voice also use creaky-voice, or vice versa?
>
> > > Aside from , which Brian mentioned, there's also:
>
> > > San Lucas Quiavini
> > > Zapotechttp://homes.chass.utoronto.ca/~cla-acl/actes2008/CLA2008_Chavez-Peon
> > > .p
> > > df
>
> > > Chonghttp://www.seedyroad.com/academics/lsa94.pdf
>
> > > Hmonghttp://www.linguistics.ucla.edu/people/grads/mgarellek/Garellek_2012_JP
> > > hon.pdf
>
> > > !Xoohttp://homepages.inf.ed.ac.uk/jcb/Research/mfm09talk-handout-6up.pdf
>
> > Even within those very papers, the authors suggest there are not
> > separate V, brV, crV phonemes, but coarticulations.
>
> San Lucas Quiavini Zapotec: "Moreover, this language also presents
> contrastive phonation types [modal, breathy, and creaky]"

"Contrastive phonation types" that need not be analyzed as contrastive
phonemes. (In a language closely related to the one studied in the
first article cited.)

> > The one you lable "Hmong" in fact is interested in the (thoroughly
> > nonsignificant, i.e. nonphonemic) predictable breathiness and
> > creakiness _in English_.
>
> "Whereas English only shows non-modal phonation due to coarticulation,
> Hmong contrasts both breathy and creaky vowels with modal ones."

That fails to demonstrate your point, since it doesn't say they
contrast breathy and creaky with each other. However, they provide
minimal quartets, which is the bit you should have copied in order to
do your "nyaah, nyaah."

That's not, however, the point of the paper.

Peter T. Daniels

unread,

Jun 17, 2012, 11:23:32 PM6/17/12

to

On Jun 17, 7:41 pm, António Marques <antonio...@sapo.pt> wrote:
> Peter T. Daniels wrote (17-06-2012 19:08):
>
> > On Jun 17, 12:50 pm, António Marques<antonio...@sapo.pt> wrote:
>
> >> I've followed these 'creaky'/'breathy' voice threads, listened to the
> >> youtubes, and I *still* have no idea what you're all talking about.
>
> > Do you have Henry Kissinger in your mind's ear? That's "creaky."
>
> > Do you have Marilyn Monroe in your mind's ear? That's "breathy."
>
> See? Was it so hard?

Eh? I've mentioned Henry before. (No one ever asked what "breathy"
meant.)

> I didn't know that was part of their speech, as opposed to something they
> did at times.
>
> > In some languages, those phenomena have been incorporated into the set
> > of phonetic features (marked with<h> in transliterations of Indic
> > languages; not generally noted in transcriptions of Khmer [Cambodian]
> > words, but in Khmer orthography it's notated).
>
> > In Ruud's examples, they aren't nearly so pervasive as in those two
> > quintessential examples.
>
> I never thought those phenomena would be incorporated into the set of
> phonetic features of any language.
> I wonder if falsetto is.

A sex-specific, age-specific ability? Seems unlikely.

Peter T. Daniels

unread,

Jun 17, 2012, 11:26:50 PM6/17/12

to

You didn't ask for "phonemes", or even "contrastive" in fact. You
just asked: "Does any language that uses breathy-voice also use
creaky-voice, or vice versa?"

> (In a language closely related to the one studied in the
> first article cited.)

(So?)

> > > The one you lable "Hmong" in fact is interested in the (thoroughly
> > > nonsignificant, i.e. nonphonemic) predictable breathiness and
> > > creakiness _in English_.
> >
> > "Whereas English only shows non-modal phonation due to coarticulation,
> > Hmong contrasts both breathy and creaky vowels with modal ones."
>
> That fails to demonstrate your point,

No, it answers your question: "Does any language that uses

breathy-voice also use creaky-voice, or vice versa?"

> since it doesn't say they
> contrast breathy and creaky with each other.

Your question didn't ask for that. You asked for any language that
"uses" both.

unread,

Jun 18, 2012, 4:15:26 AM6/18/12

to

"benl...@ihug.co.nz" <benl...@ihug.co.nz> schreef/wrote:

>Just to be clear here -- the "Valley" in "Valley Girl" is not Silicon
>Valley (and Silicon is not a reference to breast implants), but the
>San Fernando Valley, north of Los Angeles.

Oh, Kay! To me, that's all Cologne.

>I think "prestige" is questionable here, unless restricted to certain
>age/gender subgroups. But creak occurs in many people's speech quite
>independent of this (relatively) recent fashion. Peter has already
>mentioned Henry Kissinger. Our former Prime Minister Robert Muldoon
>was well known for it. It may be just a by-product of the speaker's
>physiology, or it may be 'done for effect', as you put it, i.e. a
>vocal mannerism, which can be imitated by people who want to be like
>the originators.

Conspiracy activist
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alex_Jones_(radio_host)>
creaks so horribly that I simpy refuse to listen to him if only for
that reason.

Ruud Harmsen

unread,

Jun 18, 2012, 4:19:47 AM6/18/12

to

Ruud Harmsen <r...@rudhar.com> schreef/wrote:

>Conspiracy activist
><http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alex_Jones_(radio_host)>
>creaks so horribly that I simpy refuse to listen to him if only for
>that reason.

How on earth can somebody with such a horribly objectionable and
disgusting way of speaking think of choosing "RADIO HOST" as his
occupation?????????????

Ruud Harmsen

unread,

Jun 18, 2012, 4:21:55 AM6/18/12

to

>> > > Does any language that uses breathy-voice also use
>> > > creaky-voice, or vice versa?
>> >
>> > Jalapa Mazatec has a four-way contrast for vowels: oral,
>> > nasal, creaky, breathy.
>>
>> Sez who?

Nathan Sanders <san...@alum.mit.edu> schreef/wrote:

>Sez Dan Silverman, Barbara Blankenship, Paul Kirk, and Peter Ladefoged
>
>http://www.seedyroad.com/academics/AnthropologicalLinguistics-37-70-88.pdf

http://www.phonetics.ucla.edu/vowels/chapter12/mazatec.html

pauljk

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Jun 18, 2012, 4:30:02 AM6/18/12

to

"Ruud Harmsen" <r...@rudhar.com> wrote in message
news:poott75hffj6lb6rp...@4ax.com...

When I have a cold with sore throat my voice drops by more
than an octave and gets creaky without trying. I am about half
way on the way to sound like Kissinger.
At other times, forcing creaky voice takes a lot of effort, my
voice retains its normal pitch, and after a minutes my throat/tonsils
start hurting.

From all that I assume, that because of their predisposition, some
people may find creaky voice to be natural/effortless way of speaking.

pjk

Brian M. Scott

unread,

Jun 18, 2012, 4:55:14 AM6/18/12

to

On Sun, 17 Jun 2012 04:27:53 -0700 (PDT), "Peter T. Daniels"
<gram...@verizon.net> wrote in
<news:a43e3d8e-0398-4f41...@h41g2000yqm.googlegroups.com>
in sci.lang:

> On Jun 17, 2:39 am, "Brian M. Scott" <b.sc...@csuohio.edu> wrote:

>> On Sat, 16 Jun 2012 06:01:50 -0700 (PDT), "Peter T. Daniels"
>> <gramma...@verizon.net> wrote in
>> <news:29da75d6-a561-4102...@t20g2000yqn.googlegroups.com>
>> in sci.lang:

[...]

>>> If it were part of the linguistic system you probably
>>> wouldn't even notice it, because its occurrence would be

>>> completely contrilled. Hindi doesn't sound "breathy" to
>>> you, and Khmer doesn't sound "creaky" to you, do they?
>>> (Hmm, in a compound yes/no question, the tag question is
>>> in the plural.)

>> That kind of compound yes/no question doesn't exist. 'Hindi
>> doesn't sound "breathy" to you, does it, or Khmer "creaky"?'-

> Of course it does. I just used it.

Pity about that.

My comment was intentionally in exactly the same spirit as
your parenthetical comment: an unqualified generalization
from a specific idiolect. Sauce for the goose.

Peter T. Daniels

unread,

Jun 18, 2012, 7:30:46 AM6/18/12

to

On Jun 18, 4:12 am, Ruud Harmsen <r...@rudhar.com> wrote:
> Ant nio Marques <antonio...@sapo.pt> schreef/wrote:

>
> >Peter T. Daniels wrote (17-06-2012 19:08):

> >> On Jun 17, 12:50 pm, Ant nio Marques<antonio...@sapo.pt> wrote:

>
> >>> I've followed these 'creaky'/'breathy' voice threads, listened to the
> >>> youtubes, and I *still* have no idea what you're all talking about.
>
> >> Do you have Henry Kissinger in your mind's ear? That's "creaky."
>
> >> Do you have Marilyn Monroe in your mind's ear? That's "breathy."
>
> >See? Was it so hard?
> >I didn't know that was part of their speech, as opposed to something they
> >did at times.
>
> Valley girls and German commercial voice artists do the creaky /
> breathy only at times.

But since Antonio didn't know what you were talking about, I gave him
the examples of people who do it all the time.

Peter T. Daniels

unread,

Jun 18, 2012, 7:36:08 AM6/18/12

to

I don't suppose you've ever heard of Harvey Fierstein, one of the most
successful playwrights on Broadway, who often appears in his own
works ... and even starred in the musical version of *Hairspray*?
(Unfortunately by the time I saw it, the part had been taken by John
Travolta, which made no sense at all in the context.)

Peter T. Daniels

unread,

Jun 18, 2012, 7:41:14 AM6/18/12

to

On Jun 17, 11:55 pm, Nathan Sanders <sand...@alum.mit.edu> wrote:
> In article

> <29d8e1d9-64ad-4d34-94cc-1761034b1...@f14g2000yqe.googlegroups.com>,

Of course it isn't. One is systematicity, the other is ... orneriness?

> Besides, the explicitly shoot down your proposal on the second page:
> "There are both diachronic and synchronic reasons to believe that
> breathiness and creakiness are affiliated with the vowel, and not with
> the onset consonant."

You still haven't grasped Trager/Smith phonemics? /ay/ (etc.) are
syllabic nuclei -- the symbol /y/ is not "affiliated" with the
following consonant. Similarly, writing creaky-voice as /?V/ doesn't
"affiliate" the feature with the preceding consonant; the preceding
consonant simply _precedes_ it.

> > > > (and any can also be nasal). They have no examples at
> > > > all of ?, though it's in their consonant chart, and only three of h
> > > > (in the chart of ballistic vs. controlled).
>
> > > I trust Silverman, Blankenship, Kirk, and especially Ladefoged when
> > > they say "contrast".
>
> > Too bad they didn't provide minimal pairs.
>
> There are a sufficient number of near-minimal pairs to establish
> contrast, such as 'work'-'burden' for modal-creaky, and 'is able'-'my
> tongue' for modal-breathy.
>
> > Ladefoged is the last-named author (and they're not alphabetical).
> > What exposure did he have to the speakers?
>
> More than you've had.
>
> (I know Dan Silverman, and your insinuation about his lack of
> competence is completely unfounded.)

Don't you EVER claim that I'm making personal attacks when I
demonstrate your misunderstandings of the fundamentals of pre-1980
linguistics. Where did I EVER impugn Silverman's competence?

Peter T. Daniels

unread,

Jun 18, 2012, 7:46:40 AM6/18/12

to

On Jun 18, 12:08 am, Nathan Sanders <sand...@alum.mit.edu> wrote:
> In article

> <05880600-7897-4b70-8891-c993b121b...@r3g2000yqh.googlegroups.com>,

Why would I be asking for anything else -- given that we already full
know that both are used IN ENGLISH?

> > (In a language closely related to the one studied in the
> > first article cited.)
>
> (So?)

So it's not a separate case.

> > > > The one you lable "Hmong" in fact is interested in the (thoroughly
> > > > nonsignificant, i.e. nonphonemic) predictable breathiness and
> > > > creakiness _in English_.
>
> > > "Whereas English only shows non-modal phonation due to coarticulation,
> > > Hmong contrasts both breathy and creaky vowels with modal ones."
>
> > That fails to demonstrate your point,
>
> No, it answers your question: "Does any language that uses
> breathy-voice also use creaky-voice, or vice versa?"

Only because you couldn't manage to comprehend the question.

> > since it doesn't say they
> > contrast breathy and creaky with each other.
>
> Your question didn't ask for that. You asked for any language that
> "uses" both.

Stop being an ass.

> > However, they provide minimal quartets,
>
> Good! Then the paper not only answers your question about "uses", it
> goes beyond that to answer the question you didn't ask about
> "contrasts".

Yet you failed to realize that that, and only that, of the two
examples you provided in four articles (the Zapotec and the Hmong),
answered the question.

> > which is the bit you should have copied in order to
> > do your "nyaah, nyaah."
>
> What "nyaah, nyaah"? You asked a question, and I answered it.

No, you did not, except incidentally.

> > That's not, however, the point of the paper.
>
> You didn't ask for the points of papers. You asked for languages that
> use both breathy and creaky voice.

Obviously not, since we already have English and German and maybe
Dutch (I don't remember whether Ruud has given Dutch examples over the
years).

Once again, there's nothing _linguistically_ interesting about
phonetics.

> Are papers not allowed to contain facts other than those that directly
> address their point?
>
> You really are determined to argue over pretty much anything. Why are
> you so combative? Why can't you just ask a question and then accept
> the answer?

Why can't you understand questions?

Peter T. Daniels

unread,

Jun 18, 2012, 7:33:17 AM6/18/12

to

? Would only _American_ diplomats admire Kissinger?

> > Is there any evidence as to whether, when it's pointed out to
> > Valleyspeak users, they decide to either stop or continue using it?
>
> Probably not. Yet you assume they would decide to stop.

Is that what you got from "[would] they decide to either stop or
continue using it"?

> Why? You
> yourself described it as a "prestige dialect", as a way of explaining
> why the creak had apparently spread beyond Southern California. If
> people have taken up this style of speech, creak included, in
> imitation of the original Vals, are you seriously suggesting that if
> you, or some speech teacher, pointed out that they were guilty of
> "inadequate breathing", they would respond, "Omagahd! Like, I'd really

> better stop it -- todally!"?-

Is that what you think I suggested?

pauljk

unread,

Jun 18, 2012, 8:23:00 AM6/18/12

to

<benl...@ihug.co.nz> wrote in message
news:572c9d76-1df4-4415...@x6g2000pbh.googlegroups.com...

> On Jun 18, 3:26 pm, "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...@verizon.net> wrote:
>> On Jun 17, 8:55 pm, "benli...@ihug.co.nz" <benli...@ihug.co.nz> wrote:
>> > On Jun 18, 12:07 am, Ruud Harmsen <r...@rudhar.com> wrote:
>> > > "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...@verizon.net> schreef/wrote:

[...]

>> > > >Of course! It's a prestige dialect.
>>
>> > > Prestige? To creak is prestigious? I'm afraid, your right, but it's
>> > > difficult to understand how such a thing could ever happen.
>>
>> > I think "prestige" is questionable here, unless restricted to certain
>> > age/gender subgroups.
>>
>> (It's the technical term. The dialect imitated by people who emulate
>> the speaker(s) of it. Cf. Labov's Philadelphia study.)
>>
>> > But creak occurs in many people's speech quite
>> > independent of this (relatively) recent fashion. Peter has already
>> > mentioned Henry Kissinger. Our former Prime Minister Robert Muldoon
>> > was well known for it. It may be just a by-product of the speaker's
>> > physiology, or it may be 'done for effect', as you put it, i.e. a
>> > vocal mannerism, which can be imitated by people who want to be like
>> > the originators.-
>>
>> Once you've had a single voice lesson, you'll probably find it pretty
>> hard to do. All it takes to overcome it is adequate use of the
>> diaphragm.
>
> Why do you assume people would want to "overcome" it?

I find some, not all only some, creaky singing voices quite pleasant to listen to.
For example: Tuscanian Salvatore "Toto" Cutugno singing "L'italiano Vero":

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=562nwBnMvJ8

pjk

Nathan Sanders

unread,

Jun 18, 2012, 1:41:53 PM6/18/12

to

In article
<f7e26275-ef25-4be2...@p13g2000yqk.googlegroups.com>,

"Peter T. Daniels" <gram...@verizon.net> wrote:

I thought you were asking for systematic usage.

Why would I assume you were asking for one specific theory's
idiosyncratic formal abstraction? You have proudly announced many
times that you don't even care about phonological theory!

> -- given that we already full
> know that both are used IN ENGLISH?

Not systematically!

> > > (In a language closely related to the one studied in the
> > > first article cited.)
> >
> > (So?)
>
> So it's not a separate case.

Yes, it is. Jalapa Mazatec and San Lucas Quiavini Zapotec's
creaky-breathy contrasts are not original to any mutual ancestor for
both languages. As Silverman et al. (p.71) note: "Breathy vowels
cannot be posited as a feature of Proto-Mazatec (Kirk 1966:38-44)."
San Lucas Quiavini Zapotec, of course, is not a Mazatec language; it's
Zapotec. Which means that any shared innovations that Jalapa Mazatec
and San Lucas Quiavini Zapotec have would pre-date Proto-Mazatec.
Which didn't have breathy vowels. Thus, the two languages' breathy
vowels are not shared innovations.

[snip more of your inane, irreevant carping]

Nathan Sanders

unread,

Jun 18, 2012, 2:09:01 PM6/18/12

to

In article
<678e49dc-978f-4d2a...@b21g2000yqn.googlegroups.com>,

"Peter T. Daniels" <gram...@verizon.net> wrote:

Of course it is.

> One is systematicity, the other is ... orneriness?

They're both formal abstractions away from the real-world data, in
order to make for neat/clean theories, satisfying unfounded
theoretical axioms, just as having as few distinct abstract symbols as
possible.

They're both stupid ways of doing things, because there's no evidence
that the human brain even organizes language in such a way, and in
fact, there is strong evidence that it doesn't, that we store lots and
lots of redundant information, rather than storing things as minimally
as possible.

If linguistic analysis is to have any meaning beyond being a bunch of
mathematical abstractions for linguists to play around with and argue
about, it *must* take into account facts about how language is
actually structured in the human brain, such as non-minimal storage.

> > Besides, the explicitly shoot down your proposal on the second page:
> > "There are both diachronic and synchronic reasons to believe that
> > breathiness and creakiness are affiliated with the vowel, and not with
> > the onset consonant."
>
> You still haven't grasped Trager/Smith phonemics?

I understand them just fine. They're irrelevant here. And also, see
above.

> /ay/ (etc.) are
> syllabic nuclei -- the symbol /y/ is not "affiliated" with the
> following consonant. Similarly, writing creaky-voice as /?V/ doesn't
> "affiliate" the feature with the preceding consonant; the preceding
> consonant simply _precedes_ it.

Oh dear lord. Go play with your bizarre unfounded abstractions
somewhere else. We don't need to see that here.

Jalapa Mazatec has a three-way contrast for phonation in vowels
(modal, creaky, breathy). No amount of notational trickery changes
that fact.

Not that you analysis works anyway. Jalapa Mazatec syllables
beginning with /h/ are given multiple times without breathy voice,
which means breathy voice can't be derived from /hV/.

You'd have to do something like deriving it from /hhV/.

Nathan Sanders

unread,

Jun 18, 2012, 2:11:43 PM6/18/12

to

In article <5nntt7p55c6ifn3em...@4ax.com>,

Ruud Harmsen <r...@rudhar.com> wrote:

> "Peter T. Daniels" <gram...@verizon.net> schreef/wrote:
>

> >Do you have Marilyn Monroe in your mind's ear? That's "breathy."
>
> She creaks nor breathies here:
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fy25Wih1KVk
> (Caution: very low volume)
>
> (She does of course breathe, so I coined the verb "to breathy" for
> clarity.)

Breathy voice is also called murmur, so you could have said "murmured"
(though outside of linguistics, that has a different meaning!).

Peter T. Daniels

unread,

Jun 18, 2012, 3:59:18 PM6/18/12

to

On Jun 18, 2:09 pm, Nathan Sanders <sand...@alum.mit.edu> wrote:
> In article

> <678e49dc-978f-4d2a-826a-2d64a114a...@b21g2000yqn.googlegroups.com>,

> "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...@verizon.net> wrote:
> > On Jun 17, 11:55 pm, Nathan Sanders <sand...@alum.mit.edu> wrote:

> > > > > > Perhaps not to be phonemicized as 3 x 5 = 15 different vowels, but as
> > > > > > V, hV, and ?V
>
> > > > > You can do all sorts of crazy things if your theory allows for
> > > > > sufficiently bizarre abstractions away from the measurable reality of
> > > > > the actual words of the language.
>
> > > > > Everett phonemecizes Piraha [h] as /ki/, so that he can reduce the
> > > > > number of phonemes by one.
>
> > > > Reducing by 1 is different from reducing 15 to 7.
>
> > > The principle is the same.
>
> > Of course it isn't.
>
> Of course it is.

No, it is not. Halving a number is not the same as reducing it by 1
(except if the number is 2, which isn't a relevant number).

> > One is systematicity, the other is ... orneriness?
>
> They're both formal abstractions away from the real-world data, in
> order to make for neat/clean theories, satisfying unfounded
> theoretical axioms, just as having as few distinct abstract symbols as
> possible.

One of them achieves real economy in description.

> They're both stupid ways of doing things, because there's no evidence
> that the human brain even organizes language in such a way, and in
> fact, there is strong evidence that it doesn't, that we store lots and
> lots of redundant information, rather than storing things as minimally
> as possible.

Sapir 1939.

> If linguistic analysis is to have any meaning beyond being a bunch of
> mathematical abstractions for linguists to play around with and argue
> about, it *must* take into account facts about how language is
> actually structured in the human brain, such as non-minimal storage.

Of which absolutely nothing is known, and will not be before the
activity of every individual neuron can be monitored.

> Not that you analysis works anyway. Jalapa Mazatec syllables
> beginning with /h/ are given multiple times without breathy voice,
> which means breathy voice can't be derived from /hV/.
>
> You'd have to do something like deriving it from /hhV/.

No, /h/ followed by a breathy vowel is analyzed as /hhV/. Just like
any other consonant. Thus breathy vowels are /hV/.

Peter T. Daniels

unread,

Jun 18, 2012, 4:02:38 PM6/18/12

to

On Jun 18, 1:41 pm, Nathan Sanders <sand...@alum.mit.edu> wrote:
> In article

> <f7e26275-ef25-4be2-a84a-e95772c93...@p13g2000yqk.googlegroups.com>,

> "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...@verizon.net> wrote:

> > > > > > Even within those very papers, the authors suggest there are not
> > > > > > separate V, brV, crV phonemes, but coarticulations.
>
> > > > > San Lucas Quiavini Zapotec: "Moreover, this language also presents
> > > > > contrastive phonation types [modal, breathy, and creaky]"
>
> > > > "Contrastive phonation types" that need not be analyzed as contrastive
> > > > phonemes.
>
> > > You didn't ask for "phonemes", or even "contrastive" in fact. You
> > > just asked: "Does any language that uses breathy-voice also use
> > > creaky-voice, or vice versa?"
>
> > Why would I be asking for anything else
>
> I thought you were asking for systematic usage.

What does "systematic" mean to you? In linguistics, "systematic
phonetic" is equivalent to "phonemic" (which is, of course, what I was
asking about -- why would anything else be relevant?)

> Why would I assume you were asking for one specific theory's
> idiosyncratic formal abstraction? You have proudly announced many
> times that you don't even care about phonological theory!
>
> > -- given that we already full
> > know that both are used IN ENGLISH?
>
> Not systematically!

So you didn't actually read the article? You just googled the two
words and threw up what you got?

Nathan Sanders

unread,

Jun 18, 2012, 4:26:38 PM6/18/12

to

In article
<b54f9b3b-62fd-41da...@f30g2000vbz.googlegroups.com>,

"Peter T. Daniels" <gram...@verizon.net> wrote:

> On Jun 18, 1:41 pm, Nathan Sanders <sand...@alum.mit.edu> wrote:
> > In article
> > <f7e26275-ef25-4be2-a84a-e95772c93...@p13g2000yqk.googlegroups.com>,
> > "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...@verizon.net> wrote:
>
> > > > > > > Even within those very papers, the authors suggest there are not
> > > > > > > separate V, brV, crV phonemes, but coarticulations.
> >
> > > > > > San Lucas Quiavini Zapotec: "Moreover, this language also presents
> > > > > > contrastive phonation types [modal, breathy, and creaky]"
> >
> > > > > "Contrastive phonation types" that need not be analyzed as contrastive
> > > > > phonemes.
> >
> > > > You didn't ask for "phonemes", or even "contrastive" in fact. You
> > > > just asked: "Does any language that uses breathy-voice also use
> > > > creaky-voice, or vice versa?"
> >
> > > Why would I be asking for anything else
> >
> > I thought you were asking for systematic usage.
>
> What does "systematic" mean to you?

Regular, patterned, governed by a system.

For example, the distribution of aspiration in English is systematic
(it is regular and predictable), but not contrastive.

> In linguistics, "systematic phonetic" is equivalent to "phonemic"

It absolutely is not.

Nathan Sanders

unread,

Jun 18, 2012, 4:41:55 PM6/18/12

to

In article
<c20278ff-b230-4a5a...@y41g2000yqm.googlegroups.com>,

"Peter T. Daniels" <gram...@verizon.net> wrote:

> On Jun 18, 2:09 pm, Nathan Sanders <sand...@alum.mit.edu> wrote:
> > In article
> > <678e49dc-978f-4d2a-826a-2d64a114a...@b21g2000yqn.googlegroups.com>,
> > "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...@verizon.net> wrote:
> > > On Jun 17, 11:55 pm, Nathan Sanders <sand...@alum.mit.edu> wrote:
>
> > > > > > > Perhaps not to be phonemicized as 3 x 5 = 15 different vowels,
> > > > > > > but as
> > > > > > > V, hV, and ?V
> >
> > > > > > You can do all sorts of crazy things if your theory allows for
> > > > > > sufficiently bizarre abstractions away from the measurable reality
> > > > > > of
> > > > > > the actual words of the language.
> >
> > > > > > Everett phonemecizes Piraha [h] as /ki/, so that he can reduce the
> > > > > > number of phonemes by one.
> >
> > > > > Reducing by 1 is different from reducing 15 to 7.
> >
> > > > The principle is the same.
> >
> > > Of course it isn't.
> >
> > Of course it is.
>
> No, it is not.

Yes, it is.

> > > One is systematicity, the other is ... orneriness?
> >
> > They're both formal abstractions away from the real-world data, in
> > order to make for neat/clean theories, satisfying unfounded
> > theoretical axioms, just as having as few distinct abstract symbols as
> > possible.
>
> One of them achieves real economy in description.

They both achieve "economy".

It's a difference in degree, not a difference in principle.

> > If linguistic analysis is to have any meaning beyond being a bunch of
> > mathematical abstractions for linguists to play around with and argue
> > about, it *must* take into account facts about how language is
> > actually structured in the human brain, such as non-minimal storage.
>
> Of which absolutely nothing is known,

"Absolutely nothing"? Incorrect.

> and will not be before the
> activity of every individual neuron can be monitored.

We don't need to monitor "the activity of every individual neuron" to
know more than "absolutely nothing".

> > Not that you analysis works anyway. Jalapa Mazatec syllables
> > beginning with /h/ are given multiple times without breathy voice,
> > which means breathy voice can't be derived from /hV/.
> >
> > You'd have to do something like deriving it from /hhV/.
>
> No, /h/ followed by a breathy vowel is analyzed as /hhV/. Just like
> any other consonant. Thus breathy vowels are /hV/.

Analogously, Harris 1951 proposed that, in the name of economy, German
voiceless stops could be phonemicized as a voiced stop followed by a
juncture phoneme, so that "Teil" was phonemically /d#ajl/. No need
for /ptk/ in the set of phonemes!

Your /hV/ proposal for Jalapa Mazatec breathy vowels, Everett's /ki/
analysis for [h], Harris's juncture phoneme analysis of German
voiceless stops, and the Trager-Smith analysis of English vowels are
all just a bunch of meaningless abstractions governed by an a priori
axiom demanding phonemic economy, an axiom that has no basis in the
reality of human language. Knock yourself out with them, but don't
pretend they actually mean anything beyond the narrow theoretical
framework they are part of.

benl...@ihug.co.nz

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Jun 18, 2012, 5:22:13 PM6/18/12

to

My statement is equally valid without the word "American".

> > Is there any evidence as to whether, when it's pointed out to
> > > Valleyspeak users, they decide to either stop or continue using it?
>
> > Probably not. Yet you assume they would decide to stop.
>
> Is that what you got from "[would] they decide to either stop or
> continue using it"?

No, it's what I got from your original reference to "overcoming"
creaky voice, and your sarcastic response to my question: Why do you

assume people would want to "overcome" it?

> > Why? You
> > yourself described it as a "prestige dialect", as a way of explaining
> > why the creak had apparently spread beyond Southern California. If
> > people have taken up this style of speech, creak included, in
> > imitation of the original Vals, are you seriously suggesting that if
> > you, or some speech teacher, pointed out that they were guilty of
> > "inadequate breathing", they would respond, "Omagahd! Like, I'd really
> > better stop it -- todally!"?-
>
> Is that what you think I suggested?

Perhaps instead of asking more questions, you could explain more
clearly why you used the word "overcome".

unread,

Jun 18, 2012, 11:57:32 PM6/18/12

to

On Jun 18, 11:42 pm, Nathan Sanders <sand...@alum.mit.edu> wrote:
> In article
> <8be5813e-0a92-4c94-9330-6f5e5922a...@y41g2000yqm.googlegroups.com>,

Then what would you advise the psychologists to use as their
"phonemes" in analyzing grapheme-phoneme or letter-phoneme
correspondences?

Or alternatively, what would you say that graphemes or letters
correspond to?

But I am quite seriously asking you where you got that dogma. Either
someone taught it to you, or you read it somewhere, or you made it up
yourself. (If the last, why have you not written it up for *Language*
yet?)

Ruud Harmsen

unread,

Jun 19, 2012, 12:10:58 AM6/19/12

to

"Peter T. Daniels" <gram...@verizon.net> schreef/wrote:

>On Jun 18, 4:19 am, Ruud Harmsen <r...@rudhar.com> wrote:
>> Ruud Harmsen <r...@rudhar.com> schreef/wrote:
>>
>> >Conspiracy activist
>> ><http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alex_Jones_(radio_host)>
>> >creaks so horribly that I simpy refuse to listen to him if only for
>> >that reason.
>>
>> How on earth can somebody with such a horribly objectionable and
>> disgusting way of speaking think of choosing "RADIO HOST" as his
>> occupation?????????????
>
>I don't suppose you've ever heard of Harvey Fierstein,

No, but now did: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-QR7-X6KE4w

Recommendation: don't become an actor if you can't properly talk.

>one of the most
>successful playwrights on Broadway, who often appears in his own
>works ... and even starred in the musical version of *Hairspray*?
>(Unfortunately by the time I saw it, the part had been taken by John
>Travolta, which made no sense at all in the context.)

Ruud Harmsen

unread,

Jun 19, 2012, 12:12:46 AM6/19/12

to

Nathan Sanders <san...@alum.mit.edu> schreef/wrote:

>> > > Reducing by 1 is different from reducing 15 to 7.
>> >
>> > The principle is the same.
>>
>> Of course it isn't.
>
>Of course it is.
>
>> One is systematicity, the other is ... orneriness?
>
>They're both formal abstractions away from the real-world data, in
>order to make for neat/clean theories, satisfying unfounded
>theoretical axioms, just as having as few distinct abstract symbols as
>possible.
>
>They're both stupid ways of doing things, because there's no evidence
>that the human brain even organizes language in such a way, and in
>fact, there is strong evidence that it doesn't, that we store lots and
>lots of redundant information, rather than storing things as minimally
>as possible.
>
>If linguistic analysis is to have any meaning beyond being a bunch of
>mathematical abstractions for linguists to play around with and argue
>about, it *must* take into account facts about how language is
>actually structured in the human brain, such as non-minimal storage.

I often strongly agree with Nathan, and this is one of those times.

Ruud Harmsen

unread,

Jun 19, 2012, 12:16:44 AM6/19/12

to

"Peter T. Daniels" <gram...@verizon.net> schreef/wrote:

Well yes, if it's painful, that doesn't mean it cannot be true, does
it?

Ruud Harmsen

unread,

Jun 19, 2012, 12:20:40 AM6/19/12

to

"Peter T. Daniels" <gram...@verizon.net> schreef/wrote:

>Once again, there's nothing _linguistically_ interesting about
>phonetics.

OK, so then, for me, there is nothing interesting about linguistics.

Nathan Sanders

unread,

Jun 19, 2012, 12:37:24 AM6/19/12

to

In article
<4313b603-4c3a-497b...@y41g2000yqm.googlegroups.com>,

"Peter T. Daniels" <gram...@verizon.net> wrote:

The things they already use. Psycholinguists, unlike a certain class
of phonologists, have no theory-specific interest in reducing a
language to a minimal list of abstract notation; they just use
whatever previously-established list is most convenient/appropriate
for their work.

> Or alternatively, what would you say that graphemes or letters
> correspond to?

Something theory-neutral, like "(strings of) sounds/segments".

There is a lot of evidence that illiterate speakers have little to no
awareness of individual sounds, and that we achieve such awareness
only after learning an alphabetic notation (see Morais et al. (1979)
on Portuguese and Read et al. (1986) on Chinese).

> But I am quite seriously asking you where you got that dogma. Either
> someone taught it to you, or you read it somewhere, or you made it up
> yourself. (If the last, why have you not written it up for *Language*
> yet?)

There is no dogma, other than refusing to accept an unsubstantiated
claim, which I think is a basic dogmatic principle for all scientists.
No one has presented any conclusive evidence that there a drive in the
human brain to minimize how many phonemes it organizes the language
into, ergo, I reject any proposal which uses that as a significant
factor in its analysis. Barring some internal evidence from the
language itself (such as morphophonological alternation), there is
simply no need to decompose, for example, a breathy vowel into /hV/.

Should I write a one paragraph article stating the above, and then
list every linguistics work that has ever been published to show that
none of them provide the necessary evidence?

Nathan Sanders

unread,

Jun 19, 2012, 12:38:54 AM6/19/12

to

In article <utuvt7dhpfrtp2ab5...@4ax.com>,

:-)

unread,

Jun 19, 2012, 7:49:47 AM6/19/12

to

On Mon, 18 Jun 2012 13:02:38 -0700 (PDT), "Peter T. Daniels"
<gram...@verizon.net> wrote in
<news:b54f9b3b-62fd-41da...@f30g2000vbz.googlegroups.com>
in sci.lang:

[...]

> In linguistics, "systematic phonetic" is equivalent to
> "phonemic"

Bollocks. There's a systematic phonetic difference in
English between /p-/ and /p/ in /sp-/; are you going to
claim that it's a phonemic difference?

[...]

>>> -- given that we already full know that both are used IN
>>> ENGLISH?

>> Not systematically!

> So you didn't actually read the article? You just googled
> the two words and threw up what you got?

Lovely insulting non sequitur, sweetheart.

Peter T. Daniels

unread,

Jun 19, 2012, 9:04:00 AM6/19/12

to

On Jun 19, 12:16 am, Ruud Harmsen <r...@rudhar.com> wrote:
> "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...@verizon.net> schreef/wrote:

Well, it's worked pretty well for about a century and a half
(explicitly), and for a few thousand years in practice.

Peter T. Daniels

unread,

Jun 19, 2012, 9:10:00 AM6/19/12

to

On Jun 19, 7:30 am, António Marques <antonio...@sapo.pt> wrote:
> Ruud Harmsen wrote (19-06-2012 05:20):
>

> > "Peter T. Daniels"<gramma...@verizon.net> schreef/wrote:

>
> >> Once again, there's nothing _linguistically_ interesting about
> >> phonetics.
>
> > OK, so then, for me, there is nothing interesting about linguistics.

Phonetics provides information about what is to be disregarded in
linguistic analysis -- given "same" vs. "different," you don't need to
know exactly _what_ makes the difference. Phonetics is useful for
things like speech pathology, speech therapy, and speech synthesis --
practical stuff.

> Fwiw, I tend to think of linguistics much as the same what I think of
> grammar: it's phonology, morphology and syntax. Phonetics and semantics are
> out. Inasmuch as you can isolate them.

You're a good Bloomfieldian.

Peter T. Daniels

unread,

Jun 19, 2012, 9:06:43 AM6/19/12

to

On Jun 19, 7:49 am, "Brian M. Scott" <b.sc...@csuohio.edu> wrote:
> On Mon, 18 Jun 2012 13:02:38 -0700 (PDT), "Peter T. Daniels"

> <gramma...@verizon.net> wrote in

> <news:b54f9b3b-62fd-41da...@f30g2000vbz.googlegroups.com>
> in sci.lang:
>
> [...]
>
> > In linguistics, "systematic phonetic" is equivalent to
> > "phonemic"
>
> Bollocks. There's a systematic phonetic difference in
> English between /p-/ and /p/ in /sp-/; are you going to
> claim that it's a phonemic difference?

When's the last time you read *The Sound Pattern of English*?

In 1959, Morris Halle had decreed the phoneme dead -- but he needed a
term for exactly the same thing, and he came up with "systematic
phonetics."

Peter T. Daniels

unread,

Jun 19, 2012, 9:01:57 AM6/19/12

to

On Jun 19, 12:37 am, Nathan Sanders <sand...@alum.mit.edu> wrote:
> In article

> <4313b603-4c3a-497b-bd6b-73775d141...@y41g2000yqm.googlegroups.com>,

And how do they arrive at the list of "sounds/segments"?

> There is a lot of evidence that illiterate speakers have little to no
> awareness of individual sounds, and that we achieve such awareness
> only after learning an alphabetic notation (see Morais et al. (1979)
> on Portuguese and Read et al. (1986) on Chinese).

Or Daniels 1992 on all of the above.

> > But I am quite seriously asking you where you got that dogma. Either
> > someone taught it to you, or you read it somewhere, or you made it up
> > yourself. (If the last, why have you not written it up for *Language*
> > yet?)
>
> There is no dogma, other than refusing to accept an unsubstantiated
> claim, which I think is a basic dogmatic principle for all scientists.
> No one has presented any conclusive evidence that there a drive in the
> human brain to minimize how many phonemes it organizes the language
> into, ergo, I reject any proposal which uses that as a significant
> factor in its analysis. Barring some internal evidence from the
> language itself (such as morphophonological alternation), there is
> simply no need to decompose, for example, a breathy vowel into /hV/.

So you're stating that this is your own personal view, that it was not
taught to you or presented in any publication.

I trust you will extend it to EVERY supposed "theory" of language:
your sole criterion for accepting a statement about languae is that
there is "conclusive evidence that there is a drive in the human brain
to ... organize[ ] the language" in accordance with it.

> Should I write a one paragraph article stating the above, and then
> list every linguistics work that has ever been published to show that
> none of them provide the necessary evidence?

That would indeed be a contribution to the field.

It is also quixotic, in that NO linguistics work deals with
"conclusive evidence [for] a drive in the human brain."

Peter T. Daniels

unread,

Jun 19, 2012, 8:55:30 AM6/19/12

to

On Jun 19, 12:10 am, Ruud Harmsen <r...@rudhar.com> wrote:
> "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...@verizon.net> schreef/wrote:

>
> >On Jun 18, 4:19 am, Ruud Harmsen <r...@rudhar.com> wrote:
> >> Ruud Harmsen <r...@rudhar.com> schreef/wrote:
>
> >> >Conspiracy activist
> >> ><http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alex_Jones_(radio_host)>
> >> >creaks so horribly that I simpy refuse to listen to him if only for
> >> >that reason.
>
> >> How on earth can somebody with such a horribly objectionable and
> >> disgusting way of speaking think of choosing "RADIO HOST" as his
> >> occupation?????????????
>
> >I don't suppose you've ever heard of Harvey Fierstein,
>
> No, but now did:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-QR7-X6KE4w
>
> Recommendation: don't become an actor if you can't properly talk.

He is not primarily an actor, he is primarily a playwright.

However, his first production, a four-hour (or so) autobiographical
achievement called *Torch Song Trilogy* done Off Broadway in 1982
[that's when I first saw it], could never have been performed if he
hadn't taken the central role himself. (His mother was played by
Estelle Getty of *The Golden Girls*, and the boy of 14 or so was
played by Matthew Broderick -- after *War Games* was made but before
it was released, so he was a complete unknown).

He also wrote the book for the musical version of *La Cage aux
Folles*.

And why do you say he "can't properly talk"?

Do you think Kanye West shouldn't make records because he "can't
properly sing"?

Nathan Sanders

unread,

Jun 19, 2012, 11:00:16 AM6/19/12

to

In article
<786853e1-a3fc-4a48...@n42g2000yqm.googlegroups.com>,

"Peter T. Daniels" <gram...@verizon.net> wrote:

> On Jun 19, 7:49 am, "Brian M. Scott" <b.sc...@csuohio.edu> wrote:
> > On Mon, 18 Jun 2012 13:02:38 -0700 (PDT), "Peter T. Daniels"
> > <gramma...@verizon.net> wrote in
> > <news:b54f9b3b-62fd-41da...@f30g2000vbz.googlegroups.com>
> > in sci.lang:
> >
> > [...]
> >
> > > In linguistics, "systematic phonetic" is equivalent to
> > > "phonemic"
> >
> > Bollocks. There's a systematic phonetic difference in
> > English between /p-/ and /p/ in /sp-/; are you going to
> > claim that it's a phonemic difference?
>
> When's the last time you read *The Sound Pattern of English*?

When's the last time SPE was relevant to phonology?

Nathan Sanders

unread,

Jun 19, 2012, 11:02:28 AM6/19/12

to

In article <jrp90q$g71$1...@dont-email.me>,

Sure!

I don't recall the disagreement, but it may have been before I got
more convinced that something along the lines of exemplar clouds
and/or neural networks were better models of the reality of language
than units and rules.

I may also have argued against it if there were morphophonological
alternations that pointed towards a different analysis.

Nathan Sanders

unread,

Jun 19, 2012, 11:06:49 AM6/19/12

to

In article
<91efd75a-1ffa-4a5c...@v33g2000yqv.googlegroups.com>,

"Peter T. Daniels" <gram...@verizon.net> wrote:

Who's "they"?

> > There is a lot of evidence that illiterate speakers have little to no
> > awareness of individual sounds, and that we achieve such awareness
> > only after learning an alphabetic notation (see Morais et al. (1979)
> > on Portuguese and Read et al. (1986) on Chinese).
>
> Or Daniels 1992 on all of the above.

If you were already aware of this evidence, why have you been arguing
against it?

> > > But I am quite seriously asking you where you got that dogma. Either
> > > someone taught it to you, or you read it somewhere, or you made it up
> > > yourself. (If the last, why have you not written it up for *Language*
> > > yet?)
> >
> > There is no dogma, other than refusing to accept an unsubstantiated
> > claim, which I think is a basic dogmatic principle for all scientists.
> > No one has presented any conclusive evidence that there a drive in the
> > human brain to minimize how many phonemes it organizes the language
> > into, ergo, I reject any proposal which uses that as a significant
> > factor in its analysis. Barring some internal evidence from the
> > language itself (such as morphophonological alternation), there is
> > simply no need to decompose, for example, a breathy vowel into /hV/.
>
> So you're stating that this is your own personal view, that it was not
> taught to you or presented in any publication.

I'm stating that it's a fundamental principle of science. A claim
isn't accepted until it has sufficient evidence.

> I trust you will extend it to EVERY supposed "theory" of language:
> your sole criterion for accepting a statement about languae is that
> there is "conclusive evidence that there is a drive in the human brain
> to ... organize[ ] the language" in accordance with it.

Where did I say "sole"?

There are plenty of other criteria, such as morphophonological
alternations.

> > Should I write a one paragraph article stating the above, and then
> > list every linguistics work that has ever been published to show that
> > none of them provide the necessary evidence?
>
> That would indeed be a contribution to the field.

It would likely take more pages than any journal allows for a single
article.

> It is also quixotic, in that NO linguistics work deals with
> "conclusive evidence [for] a drive in the human brain."

That is false, except for a very narrow definition of "linguistics"
that a priori excludes any such work.

Nathan Sanders

unread,

Jun 19, 2012, 11:12:39 AM6/19/12

to

In article
<e11eca0c-7d33-4ffe...@x17g2000yqg.googlegroups.com>,

"Peter T. Daniels" <gram...@verizon.net> wrote:

unread,

Jun 19, 2012, 11:30:58 AM6/19/12

to

In article <jrpnc9$qch$1...@dont-email.me>,

António Marques <anton...@sapo.pt> wrote:

> On Jun 18, 4:41 pm, Nathan Sanders<sand...@alum.mit.edu> wrote:
> > Your /hV/ proposal for Jalapa Mazatec breathy vowels, Everett's /ki/
> > analysis for [h], Harris's juncture phoneme analysis of German voiceless
> > stops, and the Trager-Smith analysis of English vowels are all just a
> > bunch of meaningless abstractions governed by an a priori axiom demanding
> > phonemic economy, an axiom that has no basis in the reality of human
> > language. Knock yourself out with them, but don't pretend they actually
> > mean anything beyond the narrow theoretical framework they are part of.
>
> That's all very well, but having as many phonemes as there are phones (or
> something along that way) is in no way less of an abstraction. Once you
> start doing 'phonemes', you have accepted 'contrast', and 'economy' is how
> you make contrast more elegant.

There is no evidence that the human brain cares about being "elegant".

There is evidence that the human brain cares about contrast.

Ergo, we should use just as much abstraction as is necessary to
capture contrast, but no so much as is necessary to be elegant.

> That the human language apparatus may work in a completely different way is
> only a problem if you want your model to reflect its innnards. For all we
> know, our intelligence is an emergent phenomenon. That doesn't stop us from
> discussing it in terms of its (emergent) properties.

I have never said that phoneme-like units aren't useful tools.

F=ma is also a useful tool. But it's inane to blindly use this tool
to argue that the force in a given situation (or the contrastively
phonated vowels in Jalapa Mazatec) *must* be exactly the given mass
times the given acceleration (*must* be represented as /V/-/hV/-/?V/)
solely based on a concern for simplicity.

Peter T. Daniels

unread,

Jun 19, 2012, 1:08:56 PM6/19/12

to

On Jun 19, 11:06 am, Nathan Sanders <sand...@alum.mit.edu> wrote:
> In article

> <91efd75a-1ffa-4a5c-a205-82f80655e...@v33g2000yqv.googlegroups.com>,

Uh, we're talking about psychologists and psycholinguists of reading?
The ones to whom you just gave the advice to "use"?

> > > There is a lot of evidence that illiterate speakers have little to no
> > > awareness of individual sounds, and that we achieve such awareness
> > > only after learning an alphabetic notation (see Morais et al. (1979)
> > > on Portuguese and Read et al. (1986) on Chinese).
>
> > Or Daniels 1992 on all of the above.
>
> If you were already aware of this evidence, why have you been arguing
> against it?

If you are unfamiliar with the linguistic literature of the 1930s and
the psycholinguistic literature of the 1970s and early 1980s, I
suggest you read my chapter (in The Linguistics of Literacy, ed.
Downing, Lma, and Noonan, selected papers from the 1988 Milwaukee
Symposium).

> > > > But I am quite seriously asking you where you got that dogma. Either
> > > > someone taught it to you, or you read it somewhere, or you made it up
> > > > yourself. (If the last, why have you not written it up for *Language*
> > > > yet?)
>
> > > There is no dogma, other than refusing to accept an unsubstantiated
> > > claim, which I think is a basic dogmatic principle for all scientists.
> > > No one has presented any conclusive evidence that there a drive in the
> > > human brain to minimize how many phonemes it organizes the language
> > > into, ergo, I reject any proposal which uses that as a significant
> > > factor in its analysis. Barring some internal evidence from the
> > > language itself (such as morphophonological alternation), there is
> > > simply no need to decompose, for example, a breathy vowel into /hV/.
>
> > So you're stating that this is your own personal view, that it was not
> > taught to you or presented in any publication.
>
> I'm stating that it's a fundamental principle of science. A claim
> isn't accepted until it has sufficient evidence.

Who has "claimed" that "there a drive in the human brain to minimize
how many phonemes it organizes the language into"?

> > I trust you will extend it to EVERY supposed "theory" of language:
> > your sole criterion for accepting a statement about languae is that
> > there is "conclusive evidence that there is a drive in the human brain
> > to ... organize[ ] the language" in accordance with it.
>
> Where did I say "sole"?
>
> There are plenty of other criteria, such as morphophonological
> alternations.

So you're now claiming that "morphophonological alternations" do not
take place in the human brain? Where, then?

> > > Should I write a one paragraph article stating the above, and then
> > > list every linguistics work that has ever been published to show that
> > > none of them provide the necessary evidence?
>
> > That would indeed be a contribution to the field.
>
> It would likely take more pages than any journal allows for a single
> article.

Is it too difficult for you, then, to make the leap that what you need
to write is a _book_? (Or, of course, a long series of articles spread
over many journals, under a unifying series title.)

> > It is also quixotic, in that NO linguistics work deals with
> > "conclusive evidence [for] a drive in the human brain."
>
> That is false, except for a very narrow definition of "linguistics"
> that a priori excludes any such work.

Cite work -- in linguistics or anywhere else, presumably excluding
psychiatry -- that deals with "conclusive evidence [for] a drive in
the human brain."

Your definition of "drive," BTW, would be useful, too.

Peter T. Daniels

unread,

Jun 19, 2012, 1:11:39 PM6/19/12

to

On Jun 19, 11:12 am, Nathan Sanders <sand...@alum.mit.edu> wrote:
> In article

> <e11eca0c-7d33-4ffe-adb2-877b009b7...@x17g2000yqg.googlegroups.com>,

And for being sure that your space probe gets to Mars, or that your
cellphone signal gets to your cellphone, it needs to be taken into
account.

What practical reason is there for abandoning the notion of phoneme?

Nathan Sanders

unread,

Jun 19, 2012, 1:14:58 PM6/19/12

to

In article
<a044a834-daa0-4e09...@5g2000vbf.googlegroups.com>,

"Peter T. Daniels" <gram...@verizon.net> wrote:

I have said explicitly (and repeatedly) that a phoneme-like notion
should not be abandoned.

Peter T. Daniels

unread,

Jun 19, 2012, 1:17:42 PM6/19/12

to

On Jun 19, 11:00 am, Nathan Sanders <sand...@alum.mit.edu> wrote:
> In article

> <786853e1-a3fc-4a48-a7c7-b4a9d6c55...@n42g2000yqm.googlegroups.com>,

> "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...@verizon.net> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
> > On Jun 19, 7:49 am, "Brian M. Scott" <b.sc...@csuohio.edu> wrote:
> > > On Mon, 18 Jun 2012 13:02:38 -0700 (PDT), "Peter T. Daniels"
> > > <gramma...@verizon.net> wrote in
> > > <news:b54f9b3b-62fd-41da...@f30g2000vbz.googlegroups.com>
> > > in sci.lang:
>
> > > [...]
>
> > > > In linguistics, "systematic phonetic" is equivalent to
> > > > "phonemic"
>
> > > Bollocks. There's a systematic phonetic difference in
> > > English between /p-/ and /p/ in /sp-/; are you going to
> > > claim that it's a phonemic difference?
>
> > When's the last time you read *The Sound Pattern of English*?
>
> When's the last time SPE was relevant to phonology?

At the time "systematic phonetics" was Halle's euphemism for
"phonemics." Brian apparently did not know that.

And unless "phonology" is not "relevant" to the sciences of reading,
SPE remains "relevant" to this day.

Not for whatever it may or may not have contributed to phonological
theory over 15 years or so [I have not discovered when the ms. started
circulating], but for its extremely elegant analysis of English
orthography.

Adam Funk

unread,

Jun 19, 2012, 1:21:49 PM6/19/12

to

Communication with extra-terrestrials.

--
I used to be better at logic problems, before I just dumped
them all into TeX and let Knuth pick out the survivors.
-- plorkwort

Peter T. Daniels

unread,

Jun 19, 2012, 1:14:15 PM6/19/12

to

On Jun 19, 11:30 am, Nathan Sanders <sand...@alum.mit.edu> wrote:
> In article <jrpnc9$qc...@dont-email.me>,

> Ant nio Marques <antonio...@sapo.pt> wrote:
>
> > On Jun 18, 4:41 pm, Nathan Sanders<sand...@alum.mit.edu> wrote:
> > > Your /hV/ proposal for Jalapa Mazatec breathy vowels, Everett's /ki/
> > > analysis for [h], Harris's juncture phoneme analysis of German voiceless
> > > stops, and the Trager-Smith analysis of English vowels are all just a
> > > bunch of meaningless abstractions governed by an a priori axiom demanding
> > > phonemic economy, an axiom that has no basis in the reality of human
> > > language. Knock yourself out with them, but don't pretend they actually
> > > mean anything beyond the narrow theoretical framework they are part of.
>
> > That's all very well, but having as many phonemes as there are phones (or
> > something along that way) is in no way less of an abstraction. Once you
> > start doing 'phonemes', you have accepted 'contrast', and 'economy' is how
> > you make contrast more elegant.
>
> There is no evidence that the human brain cares about being "elegant".
>
> There is evidence that the human brain cares about contrast.

Did you miss your calling? Did you want to be a neuroscientist rather
than a linguist?

The linguist's purview is language. The brain is the neuroscientist's.

> Ergo, we should use just as much abstraction as is necessary to
> capture contrast, but no so much as is necessary to be elegant.

So you want to be a slob of a linguist?

> > That the human language apparatus may work in a completely different way is
> > only a problem if you want your model to reflect its innnards. For all we
> > know, our intelligence is an emergent phenomenon. That doesn't stop us from
> > discussing it in terms of its (emergent) properties.
>
> I have never said that phoneme-like units aren't useful tools.
>
> F=ma is also a useful tool. But it's inane to blindly use this tool
> to argue that the force in a given situation (or the contrastively
> phonated vowels in Jalapa Mazatec) *must* be exactly the given mass
> times the given acceleration (*must* be represented as /V/-/hV/-/?V/)
> solely based on a concern for simplicity.

Who said "must"?

You are rapidly turning into Franz, dealing only in your own fantasies
rather than in what people actually say.

Nathan Sanders

unread,

Jun 19, 2012, 1:38:24 PM6/19/12

to

In article
<ca870a56-c38e-4e79...@f30g2000vbz.googlegroups.com>,

"Peter T. Daniels" <gram...@verizon.net> wrote:

I addressed that already: "they just use whatever

previously-established list is most convenient/appropriate for their
work."

> > > > There is a lot of evidence that illiterate speakers have little to no
> > > > awareness of individual sounds, and that we achieve such awareness
> > > > only after learning an alphabetic notation (see Morais et al. (1979)
> > > > on Portuguese and Read et al. (1986) on Chinese).
> >
> > > Or Daniels 1992 on all of the above.
> >
> > If you were already aware of this evidence, why have you been arguing
> > against it?
>
> If you are unfamiliar

I'm familiar enough.

Why can't you just answer the question that was posed?

> > > > > But I am quite seriously asking you where you got that dogma. Either
> > > > > someone taught it to you, or you read it somewhere, or you made it up
> > > > > yourself. (If the last, why have you not written it up for *Language*
> > > > > yet?)
> >
> > > > There is no dogma, other than refusing to accept an unsubstantiated
> > > > claim, which I think is a basic dogmatic principle for all scientists.
> > > > No one has presented any conclusive evidence that there a drive in the
> > > > human brain to minimize how many phonemes it organizes the language
> > > > into, ergo, I reject any proposal which uses that as a significant
> > > > factor in its analysis. Barring some internal evidence from the
> > > > language itself (such as morphophonological alternation), there is
> > > > simply no need to decompose, for example, a breathy vowel into /hV/.
> >
> > > So you're stating that this is your own personal view, that it was not
> > > taught to you or presented in any publication.
> >
> > I'm stating that it's a fundamental principle of science. A claim
> > isn't accepted until it has sufficient evidence.
>
> Who has "claimed" that "there a drive in the human brain to minimize
> how many phonemes it organizes the language into"?

So have you been in agreement with me this entire time that there is
no such drive in the human brain, and you've just been arguing for the
sake of arguing?

> > > I trust you will extend it to EVERY supposed "theory" of language:
> > > your sole criterion for accepting a statement about languae is that
> > > there is "conclusive evidence that there is a drive in the human brain
> > > to ... organize[ ] the language" in accordance with it.
> >
> > Where did I say "sole"?
> >
> > There are plenty of other criteria, such as morphophonological
> > alternations.
>
> So you're now claiming that "morphophonological alternations" do not
> take place in the human brain?

They may very well not.

> Where, then?

They may be epiphenomenal.

> > > > Should I write a one paragraph article stating the above, and then
> > > > list every linguistics work that has ever been published to show that
> > > > none of them provide the necessary evidence?
> >
> > > That would indeed be a contribution to the field.
> >
> > It would likely take more pages than any journal allows for a single
> > article.
>
> Is it too difficult for you, then, to make the leap that what you need
> to write is a _book_? (Or, of course, a long series of articles spread
> over many journals, under a unifying series title.)

I hardly think that compiling a list of every linguistics work ever
published is really the best way to spend my time.

> > > It is also quixotic, in that NO linguistics work deals with
> > > "conclusive evidence [for] a drive in the human brain."
> >
> > That is false, except for a very narrow definition of "linguistics"
> > that a priori excludes any such work.
>
> Cite work -- in linguistics or anywhere else, presumably excluding
> psychiatry -- that deals with "conclusive evidence [for] a drive in
> the human brain."

So that you can nit-pick them one by one? No thanks. Look them up
yourself if you're genuinely interested in the subject. If you aren't
genuinely interested (as I suspect you aren't), then there's no point
in listing references you will never read, just so that you can
continue arguing for the sake of arguing.

> Your definition of "drive," BTW, would be useful, too.

Probably.

Nathan Sanders

unread,

Jun 19, 2012, 1:43:13 PM6/19/12

to

In article
<d1256b8d-5ccf-4834...@f30g2000vbz.googlegroups.com>,

"Peter T. Daniels" <gram...@verizon.net> wrote:

A linguist who ignores the brain is only looking at a fraction of the
data.

> > Ergo, we should use just as much abstraction as is necessary to
> > capture contrast, but no so much as is necessary to be elegant.
>
> So you want to be a slob of a linguist?

I want to be accurate.

> > > That the human language apparatus may work in a completely different way
> > > is
> > > only a problem if you want your model to reflect its innnards. For all we
> > > know, our intelligence is an emergent phenomenon. That doesn't stop us
> > > from
> > > discussing it in terms of its (emergent) properties.
> >
> > I have never said that phoneme-like units aren't useful tools.
> >
> > F=ma is also a useful tool. But it's inane to blindly use this tool
> > to argue that the force in a given situation (or the contrastively
> > phonated vowels in Jalapa Mazatec) *must* be exactly the given mass
> > times the given acceleration (*must* be represented as /V/-/hV/-/?V/)
> > solely based on a concern for simplicity.
>
> Who said "must"?

You, implicitly, by proclaiming by fiat that "breathy vowels are
/Vh/". Not "can be analyzed as" or "might be", but cold hard flat
"are".

> You are rapidly turning into Franz, dealing only in your own fantasies
> rather than in what people actually say.

But you did, Blanche; you did say it.

Nathan Sanders

unread,

Jun 19, 2012, 1:43:31 PM6/19/12

to

In article <d2p6b9x...@news.ducksburg.com>,

Adam Funk <a24...@ducksburg.com> wrote:

> On 2012-06-19, Peter T. Daniels wrote:
>
> > On Jun 19, 11:12 am, Nathan Sanders <sand...@alum.mit.edu> wrote:
>
> >> So did F=ma.
> >>
> >> That doesn't make it correct.
> >>
> >> Like phonemes, F=ma is a useful, elegant abstraction away from the
> >> messiness of reality, to simplify basic analyses and to introduce new
> >> people to the field.
> >>
> >> But real-world, practicing linguists/physicists doing real-world
> >> advanced research know that phonemes/F=ma don't match reality.
> >
> > And for being sure that your space probe gets to Mars, or that your
> > cellphone signal gets to your cellphone, it needs to be taken into
> > account.
> >
> > What practical reason is there for abandoning the notion of phoneme?
>
> Communication with extra-terrestrials.

+1

Oliver Cromm

unread,

Jun 19, 2012, 1:53:23 PM6/19/12

to

* Ruud Harmsen:

> António Marques <anton...@sapo.pt> schreef/wrote:
>
>>I've followed these 'creaky'/'breathy' voice threads, listened to the
>>youtubes, and I *still* have no idea what you're all talking about.
>
> Strange, it's very conspicuous.

I guess that's the same difference as when I said "I can't eat
this cheese, it has too much chives." and someone wondered: "But
it's only a mild chives aroma!" The difference being that I don't
like chives.

When I listened to the video, before reading Nathan's comments, I
could not figure out what you were referring to (I listened in a
noisy environment, though). I don't recognize it as something
special beyond the general "commercial" speech pattern of that
speaker, which is already rather artificial in all respects.

--
Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach him to use
the 'Net and he won't bother you for weeks.