English, "dogs" pronounced /dogz/ -> /dogs/
a1a5...@bc.sympatico.ca
<ne...@ox.compsoc.net> wrote:
>Hans Kamp wrote:
>
>> I am not a native speaker of English, but what my teacher told me is the
>> following:
>>
>> The pluralizing s is pronounced:
>> - /s/ after consonants that are pronounced voicelessly;
>> - /z/ after consonants that are pronounced voicedly.
>> (The same is true for the suffix -ed in case of verbs /t/ or /d/
>> respectively).
>
>This is true at one level, but there is another overriding rule,
>namely that phrase-final voiced obstruents have a strong tendency
>to be de-voiced in most varieties of English. So that the 's' of
>"wise" would be pronounced [z] in "wise old man", but nearer to
>[s] in "He's very wise".
>
>Neil
Golly! that's news to me. Lots of Huns around Balliol these
days?
Tomoyuki Tanaka
certain syllable-final z's getting unvoiced. in theory "dogs"
should be /dogz/. but almost all people say /dogs/.
what's the exact rule?
and what are similar rules?
>> it happens in English too. in theory "dogs" should be
>> pronounced /dogz/. but almost all people say /dogs/.
>
>Really? Can't say I've ever heard anyone say /dogs/ instead of /dogz/.
>
>Any native speaker anyway. If you knew anything about English, you would
>know there are two standard pluralizers....the 's' sound and the 'z'
>sound...even though they are both written as 's'.
>
--
;;; TANAKA Tomoyuki ("Mr. Tanaka" or "Tomoyuki")
;;; http://www.cs.indiana.edu/hyplan/tanaka.html
Peter T. Daniels
>
> Tomoyuki Tanaka <tan...@dogbert.ucdavis.edu> schreef in berichtnieuws
> 7nelf1$9m0$1...@mark.ucdavis.edu...
> >
> > certain syllable-final z's getting unvoiced. in theory "dogs"
> > should be /dogz/. but almost all people say /dogs/.
> >
> > what's the exact rule?
>
> following:
>
> The pluralizing s is pronounced:
> - /s/ after consonants that are pronounced voicelessly;
> - /z/ after consonants that are pronounced voicedly.
> (The same is true for the suffix -ed in case of verbs /t/ or /d/
> respectively).
>
> Dutch we write "hoed". It is pronounced /hut/ because the d is at the end of
> the word. So the d gets unvoiced and therefore pronounced as /t/.
>
> Maybe this is true for some dialects. "The man is dead" is pronounced as /D@
> m&n Iz det/. "Dogs" would be pronounced as /dOks/. S gets unvoiced because
> it is at the end of word, and the preceding g gets unvoiced because of the
> Dutch assimilation rule that seems to be applied to. "Is" is pronounced as
> /Iz/ because the s is under the influence of the following word "dead" that
> begins with a voiced consonant (d).
Perhaps what you're missing is that in English the most salient phonetic
feature of the "voiced" consonants is not the voicing, but the laxness.
There might be little or no vocal cord vibration, but there's also no
tenseness in the relevant articulators. (That's why in olden times the
voiceless were called "hard" and the voiced "soft." I've seen such usage
in earlier German philological works, too: hart and weich, for
instance.)
--
Peter T. Daniels gram...@worldnet.att.net
Harlan Messinger
>
>certain syllable-final z's getting unvoiced. in theory "dogs"
>should be /dogz/. but almost all people say /dogs/.
>
>what's the exact rule?
>and what are similar rules?
The exact rule is: make more careful observations. English speakers
say [dOgz], not [dOgs].
--
Harlan Messinger
There are no Zs in my actual e-mail address.
Tomoyuki Tanaka
>certain syllable-final z's getting unvoiced. in theory "dogs"
>should be /dogz/. but almost all people say /dogs/.
>
see below for some references.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
X-URL: http://www.und.ac.za/und/ling/archive/rooy-01.html#DE
In non-technical terms, this implies that even though the
final sound of a word like feed is not voiced in the way that
the same phoneme might be in a word like feeding, it is still
different from the fully voiceless form feet.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
: http://www.cs.indiana.edu/hyplan/port/pap/manaster/node2.html
So the English flapping situation and German syllable-final
devoicing are rather similar. The primary difference is that
in English both the /t/ and /d/ are modified (in the
post-stress, intervocalic context) to a third sound, the
apical flap, whereas in German the voiced obstruents seem to
merge directly into the voiceless ones. Both cases are
effective enough as neutralizations that native speakers
(like phoneticians) do not immediately notice the difference.
And in both cases, there is morphological support for the
underlying contrast since pairs like Bund-bunt and
budding-butting are only homophonous in certain morphological
contexts. Again, in both languages there exist cases where
there is no basis beyond orthography for choosing the
underlying consonant (cf. German und and English water).
Hans Kamp
Tomoyuki Tanaka <tan...@dogbert.ucdavis.edu> schreef in berichtnieuws
7nelf1$9m0$1...@mark.ucdavis.edu...
>
> should be /dogz/. but almost all people say /dogs/.
>
I am not a native speaker of English, but what my teacher told me is the
following:
The pluralizing s is pronounced:
- /s/ after consonants that are pronounced voicelessly;
- /z/ after consonants that are pronounced voicedly.
(The same is true for the suffix -ed in case of verbs /t/ or /d/
respectively).
But in some American movies the Dutch devoicing rule seems to be applied. In
Dutch we write "hoed". It is pronounced /hut/ because the d is at the end of
the word. So the d gets unvoiced and therefore pronounced as /t/.
Maybe this is true for some dialects. "The man is dead" is pronounced as /D@
m&n Iz det/. "Dogs" would be pronounced as /dOks/. S gets unvoiced because
it is at the end of word, and the preceding g gets unvoiced because of the
Dutch assimilation rule that seems to be applied to. "Is" is pronounced as
/Iz/ because the s is under the influence of the following word "dead" that
begins with a voiced consonant (d).
> and what are similar rules?
AFAIK, in English the devoicing rule for consonants at the word endings is
not applied whereas in Dutch it is.
> >> it happens in English too. in theory "dogs" should be
> >> pronounced /dogz/. but almost all people say /dogs/.
> >
> >Really? Can't say I've ever heard anyone say /dogs/ instead of /dogz/.
I have. Unfortunately I don't know the name of the movie anymore.
> >Any native speaker anyway. If you knew anything about English, you would
> >know there are two standard pluralizers....the 's' sound and the 'z'
> >sound...even though they are both written as 's'.
Yes. And which one must be used, depends on the preceding pronounced
consonant or vowel.
Hans Kamp.
Tomoyuki Tanaka
i see that for most people here the last linguistics course they
had was in elementary school.
one bigot even said, "The exact rule is: make more careful
observations. English speakers say [dOgz], not [dOgs]."
In article <379B5070...@ox.compsoc.net>,
Neil Coffey <ne...@ox.compsoc.net> wrote:
>Hans Kamp wrote:
>
>This is true at one level, but there is another overriding rule,
>namely that phrase-final voiced obstruents have a strong tendency
>to be de-voiced in most varieties of English. So that the 's' of
>"wise" would be pronounced [z] in "wise old man", but nearer to
>[s] in "He's very wise".
of course when you speak super-slowly or emphasize, it's /dogz/,
as in "I didn't say I have a dog; i said i have TWO DOGZZZ."
here's an experiment. one person behind a screen says "dogs" or
/dogs/ many times in random order. another person tries
to guess which is said.
i suspect the result would be a lot like Robert Port's study on
incomplete neutralization in German. or bitter-bidder.
Christopher Schmidt
"Peter T. Daniels" schrieb:
> Perhaps what you're missing is that in English the most salient phonetic
> feature of the "voiced" consonants is not the voicing, but the laxness.
> There might be little or no vocal cord vibration, but there's also no
> tenseness in the relevant articulators. (That's why in olden times the
> voiceless were called "hard" and the voiced "soft." I've seen such usage
> in earlier German philological works, too: hart and weich, for
> instance.)
I've learnt fortis (eg /p/) vs. lenis (eg /b/) for that matter.
Chris
Neil Coffey
> I am not a native speaker of English, but what my teacher told me is the
> following:
>
> The pluralizing s is pronounced:
> - /s/ after consonants that are pronounced voicelessly;
> - /z/ after consonants that are pronounced voicedly.
> (The same is true for the suffix -ed in case of verbs /t/ or /d/
> respectively).
This is true at one level, but there is another overriding rule,
namely that phrase-final voiced obstruents have a strong tendency
to be de-voiced in most varieties of English. So that the 's' of
"wise" would be pronounced [z] in "wise old man", but nearer to
[s] in "He's very wise".
Neil
Fabian
l-ibleh Tomoyuki Tanaka <tan...@dogbert.ucdavis.edu> hu kiteb...
> certain syllable-final z's getting unvoiced. in theory "dogs"
> should be /dogz/. but almost all people say /dogs/.
Ya spika da funnee Eengleesh, mestiir.
> what's the exact rule?
> and what are similar rules?
[z] after a voiced consonant.
[s] after an unvoiced consonant.
Except for sheep. And kanji. And Octopus. this being AUE, we have to
mention the sheep again. And hajj. And gateau. And more sheep. And
ostrich. And mouse. And index.
Summary: English as rules. It just doesn't follow them very well.
--
---
Fabian
Mind the gap
John Fisher
<tan...@dogbert.ucdavis.edu> writes
> [quoting:]
> So the English flapping situation and German syllable-final
> devoicing are rather similar. The primary difference is that
> in English both the /t/ and /d/ are modified (in the
> post-stress, intervocalic context) to a third sound, the
> apical flap,
Not for all English speakers, by any means. Not for me (RP speaker,
mostly) for example.
--
John Fisher jo...@drummond.demon.co.uk jo...@epcc.ed.ac.uk
Sean Holland
>
> certain syllable-final z's getting unvoiced. in theory "dogs"
> should be /dogz/. but almost all people say /dogs/.
No they don't, you insufferable cretin.
Don Kirkman
article <379b2383...@news.bctel.ca>:
>On Sun, 25 Jul 1999 13:59:12 -0400, Neil Coffey
><ne...@ox.compsoc.net> wrote:
>>Hans Kamp wrote:
>Golly! that's news to me. Lots of Huns around Balliol these
>days?
I guess these new fads travel slowly to the far north and the far west,
eh? I guess I have a slight problem, too, with an 'overriding rule'
having a strong tendency instead of being universal, but that's another
off-topic. Anyway, by the time those phrase-final voiced obstruents
become de-voiced here on the Left Coast of the US I suppose I won't be
worrying about pronunciation much any more--or maybe we'll all be
speaking Spanish or Korean anyway. :-)
--
Don
Don Kirkman
<7neu7a$gdc$1...@mark.ucdavis.edu>:
>>certain syllable-final z's getting unvoiced. in theory "dogs"
>>should be /dogz/. but almost all people say /dogs/.
>see below for some references.
>--------------------------------------------------------------------
>X-URL: http://www.und.ac.za/und/ling/archive/rooy-01.html#DE
> In non-technical terms, this implies that even though the
> final sound of a word like feed is not voiced in the way that
> the same phoneme might be in a word like feeding, it is still
> different from the fully voiceless form feet.
So in fact 'd' is not the same as 't' in English, right?
>--------------------------------------------------------------------
>: http://www.cs.indiana.edu/hyplan/port/pap/manaster/node2.html
> So the English flapping situation and German syllable-final
> devoicing are rather similar. The primary difference is that
> in English both the /t/ and /d/ are modified (in the
> post-stress, intervocalic context) to a third sound, the
> apical flap, whereas in German the voiced obstruents seem to
> merge directly into the voiceless ones. Both cases are
> effective enough as neutralizations that native speakers
> (like phoneticians) do not immediately notice the difference.
So English and German, though related, are pronounced differently,
right?
> And in both cases, there is morphological support for the
> underlying contrast since pairs like Bund-bunt and
> budding-butting are only homophonous in certain morphological
> contexts. Again, in both languages there exist cases where
> there is no basis beyond orthography for choosing the
> underlying consonant (cf. German und and English water).
So English spelling doesn't always accurately reflect pronunciation,
right?
It's so nice to have learned input like this, though I'm not sure of its
relevance to the original thread about whether final 's' is pronounced
's' or 'z.'
--
Don
Peter T. Daniels
Yes -- tense/lax and fortis/lenis are usually synonymous.
Mike Wright
>
> i see that for most people here the last linguistics course they
> had was in elementary school.
>
> one bigot even said, "The exact rule is: make more careful
> observations. English speakers say [dOgz], not [dOgs]."
He said that because you were wrong. Noting that you are wrong makes one a bigot
only in your fantasy world where everyone hates you because of your Japanese
ancestry, rather than because you're an obnoxious individual in your own right.
You definitely got the vowel wrong. It's [O] (IPA "open o") or, perhaps [O:],
not [o].
Also, you were inconsistent in writing a voiced velar, [g], with a voiceless
sibilant, [s]. If you're going to use [g] to show the lenis, voiceless velar,
then for consistency you should write [z] to show the lenis, voiceless sibilant:
[dOgz]. If you want to emphasize the voiceless feature, then IPA "under-ring"
('=' in ASCII IPA) can be used, and you can also show the vowel length using the
colon: [dO:g=z=]. But [dogs] is just plain wrong.
If I got that wrong, I'm sure several of the linguists will correct me.
--
Mike Wright
http://www.mbay.net/~darwin/language.html
_____________________________________________________
"China is a big country, inhabited by many Chinese."
-- Charles de Gaulle
Simon R. Hughes
>
> i see that for most people here the last linguistics course they
> had was in elementary school.
>
> one bigot even said, "The exact rule is: make more careful
> observations. English speakers say [dOgz], not [dOgs]."
Japanese Engrish speakel he say [dO:g].
--
Simon R. Hughes -- http://members.xoom.com/srhughes/
<!-- As unofficial as a member of any "panel". -->
Nyal Z. Williams
Tomoyuki Tanaka wrote in message <7nelf1$9m0$1...@mark.ucdavis.edu>...
>
>certain syllable-final z's getting unvoiced. in theory "dogs"
>should be /dogz/. but almost all people say /dogs/.
>
>and what are similar rules?
The rule is that if the final consonant is unvoiced, the pluralizing "s"
will be unvoiced also; if the final consonant is voiced, the pluralizing "s"
will be voiced also. Think of sacks and bags.
Chris S.
tan...@dogbert.ucdavis.edu (Tomoyuki Tanaka) wrote:
>
> certain syllable-final z's getting unvoiced. in theory "dogs"
> should be /dogz/. but almost all people say /dogs/.
Eh, I pronounce it /dA:gs/ most of the time... But /dA:gz/sometimes too.
Notice that it's not with an [o]...
--Chris
--
...Mabuhay...
Visit / Visitez http://www.game-master.com
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Share what you know. Learn what you don't.
Lyndon Watson
> i see that for most people here the last linguistics course they
> had was in elementary school.
I see that in the elementary school which "Tomoyuki Tanaka" attended, they didn't
teach observation as a part of their linguistics course.
> one bigot even said, "The exact rule is: make more careful
> observations. English speakers say [dOgz], not [dOgs]."
Oh dear, someone exposed poor little Tommy's blunder (again). The big,
bad bigots are persecuting the poor little net-loon again.
And not only the English use the voiced /z/.
LW
Jim Breen
>>In article <7nelf1$9m0$1...@mark.ucdavis.edu>,
>> tan...@dogbert.ucdavis.edu (Tomoyuki Tanaka) wrote:
>>> certain syllable-final z's getting unvoiced. in theory "dogs"
>>> should be /dogz/. but almost all people say /dogs/.
>>Eh, I pronounce it /dA:gs/ most of the time... But /dA:gz/sometimes too.
>> Notice that it's not with an [o]...
Pronouncing it /dA:gz/ rather than /dogz/ is rather Merkin.
(I know I've mentioned it here before, but I recall an Indonesian text
belonging to my sister which said that the "a" in Indonesion was pronounced
like the "o" in dog. This mystified her and her fellow students until they
realized you had to say "dog" with an American accent for the "rule" to
apply.)
--
Jim Breen School of Computer Science & Software Engineering
Email: j.b...@csse.monash.edu.au Monash University
http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~jwb/ Clayton VIC 3168 Australia
P: +61 3 9905 3298 F: 9905 3574 ジム・ブリーン@モナシュ大å¦
John Holmes
Fabian wrote in message <7nf62u$nt8$1...@quince.news.easynet.net>...
>> should be /dogz/. but almost all people say /dogs/.
>
>
>> and what are similar rules?
>
>[s] after an unvoiced consonant.
>
>Except for sheep. And kanji. And Octopus. this being AUE, we have to
>mention the sheep again. And hajj. And gateau. And more sheep. And
>ostrich. And mouse. And index.
I believe the ASCII-IPA for the word above is /dA.gz/, which gets you back
to sheep anyway.
Regards,
John.
Richard Fontana
>In sci.lang.japan Chris S. <van...@my-deja.com> wrote:
>>>In article <7nelf1$9m0$1...@mark.ucdavis.edu>,
>>> tan...@dogbert.ucdavis.edu (Tomoyuki Tanaka) wrote:
>
>>>> should be /dogz/. but almost all people say /dogs/.
>
>>> Notice that it's not with an [o]...
>
>Pronouncing it /dA:gz/ rather than /dogz/ is rather Merkin.
>
>(I know I've mentioned it here before, but I recall an Indonesian text
>belonging to my sister which said that the "a" in Indonesion was pronounced
>like the "o" in dog. This mystified her and her fellow students until they
>realized you had to say "dog" with an American accent for the "rule" to
>apply.)
That would also confuse the many Americans who say /dO:gz/ , unless
/O/ is what was meant.
RF
R J Valentine
In alt.usage.english John Holmes <hol...@smart.net.au> wrote:
[Fabian's contribution now is snipped, except for the attribution line
below and the column of ">" characters]
]>l-ibleh Tomoyuki Tanaka <tan...@dogbert.ucdavis.edu> hu kiteb...
]>
]>> certain syllable-final z's getting unvoiced. in theory "dogs"
]>> should be /dogz/. but almost all people say /dogs/.
[<snip>]
] I believe the ASCII-IPA for the word above is /dA.gz/, which gets you back
] to sheep anyway.
And dangling particles, even.
--
R. J. Valentine <mailto:r...@clark.net>
Ben
don't recall ever hearing it pronounced that way. I think most English
speakers (myself included) will say [dogz] or [doks].
BTW Who have you been listening to speak English? Maybe this is a British
phenomenon I've missed here in America.
Tomoyuki Tanaka <tan...@dogbert.ucdavis.edu> wrote in message
news:7nfkr6$5dj$1...@mark.ucdavis.edu...
>
> i see that for most people here the last linguistics course they
> had was in elementary school.
>
> one bigot even said, "The exact rule is: make more careful
> observations. English speakers say [dOgz], not [dOgs]."
>
Believe me, if you hang around usenet, you'll get nastier stuff than that.
The people around here aren't terribly polite.
>
> In article <379B5070...@ox.compsoc.net>,
> Neil Coffey <ne...@ox.compsoc.net> wrote:
> >Hans Kamp wrote:
> >
> >This is true at one level, but there is another overriding rule,
> >namely that phrase-final voiced obstruents have a strong tendency
> >to be de-voiced in most varieties of English. So that the 's' of
> >"wise" would be pronounced [z] in "wise old man", but nearer to
> >[s] in "He's very wise".
>
>
Tomoyuki Tanaka
hi. the point is, even when you think you're saying /dogz/, the
sound produced is very much like /dogs/.
i hope you'd do the experiment i described with a friend.
i once did this experiment with a friend: one whispers
voiced-unvoiced minimal pairs (feed-feet, beep-peep,
camber-camper, etc) with the mouth hidden, the other tries to
guess which is said.
In article <7ngtgn$4vf$1...@bgtnsc03.worldnet.att.net>,
Neil Coffey
> i see that for most people here the last linguistics course they
> had was in elementary school.
And there was me thinking that all these people refuting the
presence of final obstruent devoicing in English were basing
their argument on their frequent study of spectrographic
analyses... ;-)
> one bigot even said, "The exact rule is: make more careful
> observations. English speakers say [dOgz], not [dOgs]."
Note, though, that it is devoicing of an underlyingly voiced
segment rather than replacement with an unvoiced segment, so
that something like [dOgz=] would arguably be a more
representative transcription (though I must admit that if
devoicing started on the [g], I'd possibly be tempted to
transcribe [dOg=s] rather than [dOg=z=]).
Peter T. Daniels
>
> hi. the point is, even when you think you're saying /dogz/, the
> sound produced is very much like /dogs/.
> i hope you'd do the experiment i described with a friend.
>
> i once did this experiment with a friend: one whispers
> voiced-unvoiced minimal pairs (feed-feet, beep-peep,
> camber-camper, etc) with the mouth hidden, the other tries to
> guess which is said.
The very fact that this can be done -- and it can -- shows that voicing
is not the essential difference between the "voiced/"voiceless" pairs in
English (since whispering is by definition speaking without voicing).
Hans Kamp
Peter T. Daniels <gram...@worldnet.att.net> schreef in berichtnieuws
379B46...@worldnet.att.net...
> Hans Kamp wrote:
> >
> > Tomoyuki Tanaka <tan...@dogbert.ucdavis.edu> schreef in berichtnieuws
> > 7nelf1$9m0$1...@mark.ucdavis.edu...
> > >
> > > should be /dogz/. but almost all people say /dogs/.
> > >
> >
> > following:
> >
> > The pluralizing s is pronounced:
> > - /s/ after consonants that are pronounced voicelessly;
> > - /z/ after consonants that are pronounced voicedly.
> > (The same is true for the suffix -ed in case of verbs /t/ or /d/
> > respectively).
> >
applied. In
> > Dutch we write "hoed". It is pronounced /hut/ because the d is at the
end of
> > the word. So the d gets unvoiced and therefore pronounced as /t/.
> >
> > Maybe this is true for some dialects. "The man is dead" is pronounced as
/D@
> > m&n Iz det/. "Dogs" would be pronounced as /dOks/. S gets unvoiced
because
> > it is at the end of word, and the preceding g gets unvoiced because of
the
> > Dutch assimilation rule that seems to be applied to. "Is" is pronounced
as
> > /Iz/ because the s is under the influence of the following word "dead"
that
> > begins with a voiced consonant (d).
>
> feature of the "voiced" consonants is not the voicing, but the laxness.
What is laxness? It can also be caused by a little distortion by the
television set I am using. When a speaker says s or even z, the s is much
sharper than when I am personally talking to some-one.
> There might be little or no vocal cord vibration, but there's also no
> tenseness in the relevant articulators. (That's why in olden times the
> voiceless were called "hard" and the voiced "soft." I've seen such usage
> in earlier German philological works, too: hart and weich, for
> instance.)
The words "hard" and "soft" are almost useless because these terms are also
used in the Russian language (AFAIK: legkij znak, magkij znak), in which a
consonant can be hard (spoken als in English) or soft (with a little /j/
sound). The n in "can you" is softer than in "can he", because in "can you"
the n is followed by the softening consonant /j/ (of "you").
Hans Kamp.
Hans Kamp
Christopher Schmidt <christoph...@gmx.net> schreef in berichtnieuws
379B4855...@gmx.net...
>
>
> "Peter T. Daniels" schrieb:
>
> > Perhaps what you're missing is that in English the most salient phonetic
> > feature of the "voiced" consonants is not the voicing, but the laxness.
> > tenseness in the relevant articulators. (That's why in olden times the
> > voiceless were called "hard" and the voiced "soft." I've seen such usage
> > in earlier German philological works, too: hart and weich, for
> > instance.)
>
I definitely prefer voiced and voiceless (like many others here).
Hans Kamp.
Hans Kamp
Harlan Messinger <zzzhme...@erols.com> schreef in berichtnieuws
379c4bcb...@news.erols.com...
> tan...@dogbert.ucdavis.edu (Tomoyuki Tanaka) wrote:
>
> >
> >certain syllable-final z's getting unvoiced. in theory "dogs"
> >should be /dogz/. but almost all people say /dogs/.
> >
> >what's the exact rule?
>
> say [dOgz], not [dOgs].
That is what I expect from English speakers that watch their pronunciation.
When I speak English, I pronounce "dogs" as /dOgz/, exactly how I learned
it.
Hans Kamp.
Hans Kamp
Chris S. <van...@my-deja.com> schreef in berichtnieuws
7ngg16$ka5$1...@nnrp1.deja.com...
> In article <7nelf1$9m0$1...@mark.ucdavis.edu>,
> tan...@dogbert.ucdavis.edu (Tomoyuki Tanaka) wrote:
>
> >
> > certain syllable-final z's getting unvoiced. in theory "dogs"
> > should be /dogz/. but almost all people say /dogs/.
>
>
> Notice that it's not with an [o]...
That is the American English pronunciation? However, there is no chance of
confusion (that would be due to pronunciation).
Hans Kamp.
Hans Kamp
>
> i see that for most people here the last linguistics course they
> had was in elementary school.
Perhaps that is true, but what I am saying here is the pronunciation of
actors in movies. Their pronunciation is pretty accurate, so when the Dutch
subtitles would disappear (due to a malfunctioning of the subtitling
computer of the broadcasting corporation), I wouldn't get in trouble. In
"The Bold And Beautiful" I have heard two pronunciations of "Forrester":
/'for@st@r/ and /'fAr@st@r/, especially the second is typical American
English.
> one bigot even said, "The exact rule is: make more careful
> observations. English speakers say [dOgz], not [dOgs]."
>
>
> In article <379B5070...@ox.compsoc.net>,
> Neil Coffey <ne...@ox.compsoc.net> wrote:
> >Hans Kamp wrote:
> >
> >This is true at one level, but there is another overriding rule,
> >namely that phrase-final voiced obstruents have a strong tendency
> >to be de-voiced in most varieties of English. So that the 's' of
> >"wise" would be pronounced [z] in "wise old man", but nearer to
> >[s] in "He's very wise".
>
>
> of course when you speak super-slowly or emphasize, it's /dogz/,
> as in "I didn't say I have a dog; i said i have TWO DOGZZZ."
That is true, but I can also hear pronunciation, while the actors have a
normal speach tempo.
> here's an experiment. one person behind a screen says "dogs" or
> /dogs/ many times in random order. another person tries
> to guess which is said.
A bit difficult, unless the person says "dogs" /dOgz/ and "docks" /dOks/ in
a random order.
> i suspect the result would be a lot like Robert Port's study on
> incomplete neutralization in German. or bitter-bidder.
I don't know what that is.
Hans Kamp.
Neil Coffey
> I have to say that it comes out very forced if I try to say [dogs], and I
> don't recall ever hearing it pronounced that way. I think most English
> speakers (myself included) will say [dogz] or [doks].
> BTW Who have you been listening to speak English? Maybe this is a British
> phenomenon I've missed here in America.
The obstruent devoicing phenomenon really does occur in a wide
variety of Englishes. In the case of two words such as 'dogs' and
'docks', the distinguishing feature is generally speaking the
vowel length and presence/absence of glottalisation; phonetically,
the final segments contain very little voicing in both cases in
most circumstances.
Don't forget that native speakers of languages tend to hear what
their brain tells them they've heard rather than what they've
actually heard. When you hear the word 'dogs' you may think the
final segments are voiced because the vowel is lengthened, and
your English-speaking brain is attuned to associating vowel
lengthening with final voiced segments, whereas in reality there
may well be little or no voicing present. From this point of view,
there's a certain irony in people talking about 'careful
observation'...
Now, it is quite possible that there may be some varieties of
American (and indeed British) English that don't exhibit final
obstruent devoicing. However, note that there are plenty of
American phonologists who refer to it readily in descriptions of
English phonology (indeed, presumably it's mentioned in SPE?).
Neil Coffey
and the occasional linguistic observations seem to be swamped
in mythology.
In order to demonstrate obstruent devoicing, I've sampled some
speech off the TV and placed it, along with an explanation,
at the following URL:
http://www.debussy.demon.co.uk/DevoicedObstruents/index.html
Before the next person tells us that "dogs" is always
pronounced [dOgz], I beg you, *please* have a careful listen to
these samples.
Bear in mind this was fairly off the cuff -- I literally just
turned on the telly and grabbed a couple of random samples. If
I can find some better illustrations, I'll put them up. As soon
as CNN have some native speaker newsreaders on, I'll take some
samples from there too.
a1a5...@bc.sympatico.ca
Kirkman) wrote:
>It seems to me I heard somewhere that a1a5...@bc.sympatico.ca wrote in
>article <379b2383...@news.bctel.ca>:
>
>>On Sun, 25 Jul 1999 13:59:12 -0400, Neil Coffey
>>>This is true at one level, but there is another overriding rule,
>>>namely that phrase-final voiced obstruents have a strong tendency
>>>to be de-voiced in most varieties of English. So that the 's' of
>>>"wise" would be pronounced [z] in "wise old man", but nearer to
>>>[s] in "He's very wise".
>
>>Golly! that's news to me. Lots of Huns around Balliol these
>>days?
>
>I guess these new fads travel slowly to the far north and the far west,
>eh? I guess I have a slight problem, too, with an 'overriding rule'
>having a strong tendency instead of being universal, but that's another
>off-topic.
I have noticed that there seems to be a side-saddle quality to
linguists' English and no fear of stretching things.
> Anyway, by the time those phrase-final voiced obstruents
>become de-voiced here on the Left Coast of the US I suppose I won't be
>worrying about pronunciation much any more--or maybe we'll all be
>speaking Spanish or Korean anyway. :-)
>--
>Don
Federal funding would be required, and here that all goes into
French and Salish.
D. Edward Gund v. Brighoff
As terms or as concepts? The tense/lax (or fortis/lenis) distinction is
not the same as the voiceless/voiced distinction. In some dialects of
German (notably in the South), the "voiced/voiceless" distinction in the
stops is actually a "lenis-unaspirated/fortis-aspirated" one.
--
Daniel "Da" von Brighoff /\ Dilettanten
(de...@midway.uchicago.edu) /__\ erhebt Euch
/____\ gegen die Kunst!
Greg Lee
...
: Also, you were inconsistent in writing a voiced velar, [g], with a voiceless
: sibilant, [s]. If you're going to use [g] to show the lenis, voiceless velar,
: then for consistency you should write [z] to show the lenis, voiceless sibilant:
: [dOgz]. If you want to emphasize the voiceless feature, then IPA "under-ring"
: ('=' in ASCII IPA) can be used, and you can also show the vowel length using the
: colon: [dO:g=z=]. But [dogs] is just plain wrong.
: If I got that wrong, I'm sure several of the linguists will correct me.
Like some others, I usually devoice obstruents like b, d, g, z, except in
voiced surroundings, but as you imply, they remain lenis and therefore
phonetically distinct from corresponding phonemic p, t, k, s. So, I
can hear a difference between "use" the verb, e.g., and "use" the noun,
even though the last sounds are both voiceless. Now, I've said "dogs"
over a bunch of times, and I really can't hear any difference between
its last sound and the last sound of "docks". Using your notation,
they sound to me like [d=O:g=s] and [d=aks].
So, I'm not convinced that [dogs] ([dOgs]) is wrong.
--
Greg Lee <l...@Hawaii.edu>
Mark Rosenfelder
>Like some others, I usually devoice obstruents like b, d, g, z, except in
>voiced surroundings, but as you imply, they remain lenis and therefore
>phonetically distinct from corresponding phonemic p, t, k, s. So, I
>can hear a difference between "use" the verb, e.g., and "use" the noun,
>even though the last sounds are both voiceless. Now, I've said "dogs"
>over a bunch of times, and I really can't hear any difference between
>its last sound and the last sound of "docks". Using your notation,
>they sound to me like [d=O:g=s] and [d=aks].
>
>So, I'm not convinced that [dogs] ([dOgs]) is wrong.
Ditto. I tried the same thing, with my finger on my Adam's apple to check
for voicing. I think [dOgs] is pretty accurate. (With "docks", by
contrast, voicing seems to switch off halfway through the vowel.)
That's 'dogs' sentence-finally, though; 'dogs are' has [dOgz].
Ben
class past elementary school, you would know that.
Of course the sounds /s/ and /z/ are very similar. Their place and manner
of articulation are the same, so when you whisper they sound
indistinguishable. I fail to see what this proves. Every English speaker I
know voices that final sibilant if it follows a voiced sound. That's the
rule, and whispering doesn't change it. You just say /toks/ instead of
/dogs/
Tomoyuki Tanaka <tan...@dogbert.ucdavis.edu> wrote in message
news:7nhc86$nik$1...@mark.ucdavis.edu...
>
> hi. the point is, even when you think you're saying /dogz/, the
> sound produced is very much like /dogs/.
> i hope you'd do the experiment i described with a friend.
>
> i once did this experiment with a friend: one whispers
> voiced-unvoiced minimal pairs (feed-feet, beep-peep,
> camber-camper, etc) with the mouth hidden, the other tries to
> guess which is said.
>
>
> In article <7ngtgn$4vf$1...@bgtnsc03.worldnet.att.net>,
> Ben <bwe...@simons-rock.edu> wrote:
> >I have to say that it comes out very forced if I try to say [dogs], and I
> >don't recall ever hearing it pronounced that way. I think most English
> >speakers (myself included) will say [dogz] or [doks].
> >BTW Who have you been listening to speak English? Maybe this is a
British
> >phenomenon I've missed here in America.
> >
> >Tomoyuki Tanaka <tan...@dogbert.ucdavis.edu> wrote in message
> >news:7nfkr6$5dj$1...@mark.ucdavis.edu...
> >>
> >> i see that for most people here the last linguistics course they
> >> had was in elementary school.
> >>
> >> one bigot even said, "The exact rule is: make more careful
> >> observations. English speakers say [dOgz], not [dOgs]."
> >>
> >Believe me, if you hang around usenet, you'll get nastier stuff than
that.
> >The people around here aren't terribly polite.
> >>
> >> In article <379B5070...@ox.compsoc.net>,
> >> Neil Coffey <ne...@ox.compsoc.net> wrote:
> >> >Hans Kamp wrote:
> >> >
> >> >This is true at one level, but there is another overriding rule,
> >> >namely that phrase-final voiced obstruents have a strong tendency
> >> >to be de-voiced in most varieties of English. So that the 's' of
> >> >"wise" would be pronounced [z] in "wise old man", but nearer to
> >> >[s] in "He's very wise".
> >>
> >>
> >> of course when you speak super-slowly or emphasize, it's /dogz/,
> >> as in "I didn't say I have a dog; i said i have TWO DOGZZZ."
> >>
> >> here's an experiment. one person behind a screen says "dogs" or
> >> /dogs/ many times in random order. another person tries
> >> to guess which is said.
> >>
> >> i suspect the result would be a lot like Robert Port's study on
> >> incomplete neutralization in German. or bitter-bidder.
> >>
>
>
>
Peter T. Daniels
>
> When you whisper, everything is unvoiced. If you had taken a linguistics
> class past elementary school, you would know that.
> Of course the sounds /s/ and /z/ are very similar. Their place and manner
> of articulation are the same, so when you whisper they sound
> indistinguishable. I fail to see what this proves. Every English speaker I
> know voices that final sibilant if it follows a voiced sound. That's the
> rule, and whispering doesn't change it. You just say /toks/ instead of
> /dogs/
No, you still say /dogz/, and it comes out [d=og=z=].
(If you had taken a phonetics class past linguistics 101 ...)
Tomoyuki Tanaka
true.
>and whispering doesn't change it. You just say /toks/ instead of
>/dogs/
false. do the experiment.
voicing is only one of several cues that distiguishes
b-p, v-f, z-s, ...
some of the others are aspiration and duration (voiceless
consonants are longer).
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Peter T. Daniels
No, not "the" American English pronunciation -- remember all that stuff
about cot and caught and merging low back vowels. It varies all over the
place.
Hans Kamp
>
> hi. the point is, even when you think you're saying /dogz/, the
> sound produced is very much like /dogs/.
> i hope you'd do the experiment i described with a friend.
Not true, when I am speaking English. Devoicing ending consonants is a rule
in my native tongue Dutch, but not in English. For example I speak "bed" in
English as /bed/, and in Dutch (with the same meaning) as /bEt/. German,
Russian and Dutch devoice ending consonants, but English, French, Esperanto
and Bulgarian don't, although I think that some (American) English dialects
doe devoice ending consonants.
> i once did this experiment with a friend: one whispers
> voiced-unvoiced minimal pairs (feed-feet, beep-peep,
> camber-camper, etc) with the mouth hidden, the other tries to
> guess which is said.
Aha whispering!!! That makes everything a lot different. Evering consonant
an vowel gets devoiced, because you don't use your voice, only your breath
for speaking. But I do hear the difference between a whispered t and a
whispered d, a whispered b and p, k and g, because in English p, t and k are
aspirated and also in the Dutch dialect in my region (In standard Dutch
(Algemeen Beschaafd Nederlands) p, t and k are not aspirated). That
difference I cannot hear between s and z, and between f and v.
Hans Kamp.
gene ray
> > Dutch we write "hoed". It is pronounced /hut/ because the d is at
the
***
Skimming through this post, I noticed a word that resembled a misnomer
I
encountered some time back. A friend of mine was brought up in rural
Alabama where field work, at that time, was the expected norm for
children from about 8 yrs.
old and up. One day he and his sister were "hoing" the garden, when ,
with great pride
his 13 year old sister proudly exclaimed to her mama, "Ain't I the
best hoer you've
ever had?" At that remark her mother, without explaination, firmly
slapped
his sister and caused my buddy great fun. As of this writing, it's
still not known
whether or not the mother or daughter have ever come to terms as to
why she
had been reprimanded so sternly.
Gene
Chris S.
mark...@enteract.com (Mark Rosenfelder) wrote:
> Ditto. I tried the same thing, with my finger on my Adam's apple to
> check for voicing. I think [dOgs] is pretty accurate. (With "docks",
> by contrast, voicing seems to switch off halfway through the vowel.)
>
> That's 'dogs' sentence-finally, though; 'dogs are' has [dOgz].
Is there any "pronunciation boundary" in the US where people pronounce
the "o" in dogs as [A] and the other as [O].... I understand that
they're the same sound except that the latter is rounded and the other
isn't. Sometimes I can't distinguish between the two sounds, though.
--Chris
--
...Mabuhay...
Visit / Visitez http://www.game-master.com
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Share what you know. Learn what you don't.
James Follett
tan...@dogbert.ucdavis.edu "Tomoyuki Tanaka" writes:
>hi. the point is, even when you think you're saying /dogz/, the
>sound produced is very much like /dogs/.
>i hope you'd do the experiment i described with a friend.
Dear Mr Tanaka at Dogbreath,
Would you please append your comments to the end of a repost rather
than plonk them at the beginning. Surely your AUP makes this clear
whether it's written in Jap or whatever heathen language you use.
Many thanks,
--
James Follett -- novelist http://www.davew.demon.co.uk
Gwen Lenker
wrote:
>When you whisper, everything is unvoiced. If you had taken a linguistics
>class past elementary school, you would know that.
Excuse me for ignoring the major point of this discussion to focus on
a tiny side-issue, but *is* there a place where linguistics is taught
in elementary school? I'm sorry to have missed it.
Hans Kamp
D. Edward Gund v. Brighoff <de...@midway.uchicago.edu> schreef in
berichtnieuws FFHK2...@midway.uchicago.edu...
I am talking about Standard English and Algemeen Beschaafd Nederlands. We
have voiced and voiceless consonants.
Hans Kamp.
Mike Wright
>
> In article <7nh03m$lcj$1...@news.hawaii.edu>, Greg Lee <l...@Hawaii.edu> wrote:
> >Like some others, I usually devoice obstruents like b, d, g, z, except in
> >voiced surroundings, but as you imply, they remain lenis and therefore
> >phonetically distinct from corresponding phonemic p, t, k, s. So, I
> >can hear a difference between "use" the verb, e.g., and "use" the noun,
> >even though the last sounds are both voiceless. Now, I've said "dogs"
> >over a bunch of times, and I really can't hear any difference between
> >its last sound and the last sound of "docks". Using your notation,
> >they sound to me like [d=O:g=s] and [d=aks].
> >
> >So, I'm not convinced that [dogs] ([dOgs]) is wrong.
>
> for voicing. I think [dOgs] is pretty accurate. (With "docks", by
> contrast, voicing seems to switch off halfway through the vowel.)
>
> That's 'dogs' sentence-finally, though; 'dogs are' has [dOgz].
Well, I thought that I could not only hear, but also feel a difference in my own
speech. Next, I tried whispering, and I still felt a difference. I also tried
saying [d=O:g=s], but it didn't sound right.
But I don't have much faith in such experiments, because it's hard to speak
naturally while paying attention, so I went a little farther. I recorded the
following sentences using SoundMaker on my Mac:
"The talks were going well."
"His togs were very nice."
(I used "talks" and "togs" because they both have approximately the same vowel
[O] for me, while "docks" has something more like [a]. Actually, the vowel of
"togs" sounds just a bit lower to me than the one in "talks", in addition to
being longer.)
I recorded these several times, varying stress and loudness, sometimes saying
one first, sometimes the other, trying to speak naturally. I still felt that I
could hear a difference.
I tried highlighting just the s portion of each, and they did sound different,
but the sounds were so brief that I couldn't say just what the difference was,
but it seemed like the "same kind" of difference each time. The waveforms looked
different, too, but I'm not sure that means much. I couldn't judge whether it
was due to a significant difference in articulation or just an accidental
variation in my speech.
Then I replaced the s portion in "talks" with the same portion from "togs", and
it didn't sound too bad. But, when I reversed the process, "togs" sounded really odd.
This wasn't a rigorously performed experiment, though I tried to be careful, but
it left me feeling that there is a definite difference between the two s's in my
speech. Surely someone has actually done all the relevant experiments with
proper lab equipment, and the results are in the literature somewhere. And
surely some the linguists out there in sci.lang-land know where to look, if
they're really interested.
I've noticed that adjacent sounds seem to affect one another in my speech
(assimilation?). A particularly noticeable one is that I nasalize vowels that
are followed by nasal consonants. (It's not as strong as Holo nasalization, but
it's definitely there.) It seems unlikely to me that the laxness of [g=] would
not affect the following s.
BTW, TT's original message (as you can also see from the subject line) said:
> in theory "dogs" should be /dogz/. but almost all people say /dogs/.
Note the phonemic representation. Did we change the rules when we went to
phonetic notation?
I went on the Web to see what I could find out, and it seems that incorrect
information is being taught in some college linguistics courses. I couldn't find
a single site that matched what Greg and Mark are saying.
http://www.idsia.ch/~fred/phon98/rules2.html
"Recall our analysis of the allomorphs of the English plural morpheme. We noted
that the final form was /s/ when the final sound of the stem was voiceless, /z/
if the final sound was voiced,..."
http://www.arts.uwa.edu.au/LingWWW/LIN101-102/NOTES-101/phoneme.html
The sounds [s] and [z] are in different phonemes in most contexts:
sip zip
cease seize
maces mazes
but in the plural suffix (and the 3s present verbal suffix) we can predict
whether /s/ or /z/ will appear, as if they were allophones of the same phoneme.
This sort of alternation is referred to as morphophonemic alternation
Other folks, some of them supposedly linguists, seem to be making the same error:
http://www.sil.org/lingualinks/library/literacy/KRZ215/DRZ2236/KRZ599/drz7898.htm
Phonemic orthographies overdifferentiate in the way they represent morphemes, in
the sense that some
morphemes may have more than one graphic shape. A phonemic spelling of English
plurals would include z
(dog z) as well as s (cat s). Morphophonemic orthographies, on the other hand, underdifferentiate
systematically in the way they represent phonemes, in that some symbols may
represent more than one
phoneme. The English plural s represents both the /s/ phoneme and the /z/
phoneme.
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/writing/freiburg.htm
The pluralizing /s/ is unvoiced in words like cats, voiced in words like dogs,
by assimilation to the final consonant of the root. The only way to make the /s/
unvoiced is to assimilate the root to the affix: dogs becomes doks. We cannot
pronounce a voiced /g/ followed by an unvoiced /s/.
http://www.digital.com/DTJK01/
Many morphs have multiple phonemic representations that can depend on either
word or phonemic context. The correct phonemic symbols are determined by
morphophonemic rules. For example, plural words that end in the morpheme s are
spoken by appending either the s, the z, or the eh z plural morphemes (expressed
as Arpabet phonemic symbols) at the end of the word.[7] 7.V. Fromkin and R.
Rodman, An Introduction to Language, 2d ed. (New York: Holt, Rinehart, and
Winston, 1978).
http://www.bu.edu/mfll/past-events.html
Sheila E. Blumstein
Brown University
"A Theory of Acoustic Invariance Revisited"
[...]The current framework was considered in relation to data obtained from a
study of voicing characteristics of syllable-final fricatives (Lee and
Blumstein, 1999). We conducted acoustic analyses of syllable-final voiced and
voiceless fricative consonants [s z] in American English and French preceded by
one of 3 vowel contexts.[...]
Even Steven Pinker gets it wrong:
http://cogsci.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Papers/Py104/pinker.conn.html
The regular noun plural exactly parallels the 3rd person singular marking of the
verb, despite the fact that the two categories (noun/verb, singular/plural) have
no notional overlap. The rule for choosing among s-z-@o[i-z] is this: @o [i-z]
goes after stems ending in sibilants (s,z,S,Z,C,J); elsewhere, s (itself
voiceless) goes after voiceless segments, z (voiced itself) goes after voiced segments.
Why is it that so many people teaching and writing about linguistics are getting
this wrong?
--
Mike Wright
http://www.mbay.net/~darwin/language.html
_____________________________________________________
"China is a big country, inhabited by many Chinese."
-- Charles de Gaulle
Tomoyuki Tanaka
isn't James Follett a rather well known author?
(similar genre as Tom Clancy)
i think i've seen his books in bookstores.
or am i thinking of someone else?
note his use of "Jap".
if he expresses racial prejudice toward the Japanese (or other
Asians) in his books, i'd like to know the book titles.
In article <933020...@marage.demon.co.uk>,
James Follett <ja...@marage.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>
>>hi. the point is, even when you think you're saying /dogz/, the
>>sound produced is very much like /dogs/.
>>i hope you'd do the experiment i described with a friend.
>
>Dear Mr Tanaka at Dogbreath,
>
>Would you please append your comments to the end of a repost rather
>than plonk them at the beginning. Surely your AUP makes this clear
>whether it's written in Jap or whatever heathen language you use.
>
>Many thanks,
>--
>James Follett -- novelist http://www.davew.demon.co.uk
--
mith...@indiana.edu
Mike Wright wrote:
> ...I went on the Web to see what I could find out, and it seems that incorrect
> information is being taught in some college linguistics courses. I couldn't find
> a single site that matched what Greg and Mark are saying.
It looks like that's because those sites are discussing a somewhat different issue, the phonemic
realization of the plural suffix. GL and MR are talking about a different effect, the exact
realization of the allophones of /s/ or /z/ in a particular environment (word or utterance-final,
differing in whether following segments are voiced or unvoiced). If you want to look at it in terms
of lexical phonology, the suffix is appended to the noun during inflection; what happens is that it
is specified as either /s/ or /z/. *Then* the finished word is subject to allophonic rules. These
determine (or describe,depending on how you look at it) the exact realization of /z/ or /s/ in that
environment. However, they apply to all /s/ and /z/ in those environments, but whether it is /s/ or
/z/ for the plural suffix is determined by the rule given, which applies earlier in production. That
is, you have two separate sets of rules, those which include /Z/ -> /z/ or /s/ depending on
word-internal conditioning, and those determining which allophones occur, conditioned by the sounds
in adjacent words. (And lexical phonology makes strong predictions about just how much of a word at
a given step--such as adding a derivational suffix--will be subject to later rules. In general and
to oversimplify, segments not adjacent to segments adposed in a later rule cycle will be immune to
the rules applying in that later cycle. Syllabification and stress in English, on the other hand,
are redone after every step, which allows some elegant descriptions of multi-suffixed English words,
for example.)
Mikael Thompson
Mike Wright
>
> People seem to be making very heavy weather out of this thread,
> and the occasional linguistic observations seem to be swamped
> in mythology.
>
> In order to demonstrate obstruent devoicing, I've sampled some
> speech off the TV and placed it, along with an explanation,
> at the following URL:
>
> http://www.debussy.demon.co.uk/DevoicedObstruents/index.html
I get a Real Audio error #14--Requested file not found--for all the links.
Michael Cargal
tan...@dogbert.ucdavis.edu (Tomoyuki Tanaka) wrote:
>isn't James Follett a rather well known author?
>(similar genre as Tom Clancy)
>i think i've seen his books in bookstores.
>or am i thinking of someone else?
>
>note his use of "Jap".
>if he expresses racial prejudice toward the Japanese (or other
>Asians) in his books, i'd like to know the book titles.
Without getting into James' curmudgeonhood, I wonder about your style
of capitalization. You capitalize personal, geographic, and ethnic
names but not the word "I" or any word at the beginning of a sentence.
This makes it seem a conscious style rather than simply typing quickly
and not wanting to use the shift key. Is there a reason for this
selective capitalization?
(FYI, amazon.com lists about 20 books by Mr. Follett.)
--
Michael Cargal car...@cts.com
Skitt
Mike Wright <dar...@mbay.net> wrote in message
news:379CDE50...@mbay.net...
> Neil Coffey wrote:
> >
> > People seem to be making very heavy weather out of this thread,
> > and the occasional linguistic observations seem to be swamped
> > in mythology.
> >
> > In order to demonstrate obstruent devoicing, I've sampled some
> > speech off the TV and placed it, along with an explanation,
> > at the following URL:
> >
> > http://www.debussy.demon.co.uk/DevoicedObstruents/index.html
> [...]
>
> I get a Real Audio error #14--Requested file not found--for all the links.
So do I.
--
Skitt (on Florida's Space Coast) http://i.am/skitt/
... and that, my liege, is how we know the Earth to be banana-shaped.
john
----------
In article <7nillt$2ld$1...@mark.ucdavis.edu>, tan...@dogbert.ucdavis.edu
(Tomoyuki Tanaka) wrote:
>
>isn't James Follett a rather well known author?
>(similar genre as Tom Clancy)
>i think i've seen his books in bookstores.
>or am i thinking of someone else?
>
>note his use of "Jap".
>if he expresses racial prejudice toward the Japanese (or other
>Asians) in his books, i'd like to know the book titles.
>
I think he's just doing you a favor, Tommy.
Mark Rosenfelder
>In article <7ni8i6$a73$1...@eve.enteract.com>,
> mark...@enteract.com (Mark Rosenfelder) wrote:
>> check for voicing. I think [dOgs] is pretty accurate. (With "docks",
>> by contrast, voicing seems to switch off halfway through the vowel.)
>>
>> That's 'dogs' sentence-finally, though; 'dogs are' has [dOgz].
>
>the "o" in dogs as [A] and the other as [O]....
Yes; most notably, the two sounds merge in the West. See Labov's map at
http://www.ling.upenn.edu/phono_atlas/ICSLP4.html#Heading2
>I understand that
>they're the same sound except that the latter is rounded and the other
>isn't. Sometimes I can't distinguish between the two sounds, though.
For me, [O] is higher, as well.
Mike Wright
>
> Mike Wright wrote:
>
> > I get a Real Audio error #14--Requested file not found--for all the links.
>
> or something. OK, I've changed the links slightly so that it should
> at least play the samples, though it'll want to download them then
> play them rather than streaming them (but the biggest one's only
> about 60K, so it shouldn't be a big deal).
Now I get error #11--This document is not a RealAudio or RealVideo document.
I'm using version 5.0.2 of Real Player for the Mac, which seems to be the latest available.
Hans Kamp
Peter T. Daniels <gram...@worldnet.att.net> schreef in berichtnieuws
379CAC...@worldnet.att.net...
> Ben wrote:
> >
> > When you whisper, everything is unvoiced. If you had taken a
linguistics
> > class past elementary school, you would know that.
manner
> > of articulation are the same, so when you whisper they sound
> > indistinguishable. I fail to see what this proves. Every English
speaker I
> > know voices that final sibilant if it follows a voiced sound. That's
the
> > /dogs/
>
> No, you still say /dogz/, and it comes out [d=og=z=].
When I wisper "dogs" I say /d"Oks/, where /d"/ stands for unvoiced /d/, but
that is not quite identical with /t/, because de /t/ is aspirated. While
whispering, I am not able to say /gz/ at the end, because I am not using the
voice, which is needed for saying /gz/. The result therefore is: /ks/.
Therefore I agree with Ben.
Hans Kamp.
Hans Kamp
Okay.
> >and whispering doesn't change it. You just say /toks/ instead of
> >/dogs/
>
> false. do the experiment.
How would you pronounce /d/, /g/ and /z/ when the voice is missing? What
should the experiment prove to us?
> voicing is only one of several cues that distiguishes
> b-p, v-f, z-s, ...
Yes, but you agreed that everything is unvoiced, when you whisper. It is
very difficult to say /b/, /v/, /z/, ...
> some of the others are aspiration and duration (voiceless
> consonants are longer).
Yes, that is right. But only in languages where /p/, /t/ and /k/ are
aspirated as in English and in Dutch dialect in the eastern part of the
Netherlands. For example this is not true for Algemeen Beschaafd Nederlands
(=Standard Dutch), because /p/, /t/ and /k/ are not aspirated in Dutch. /g/
doesn't exist in Dutch, only due to assimilation rules.
Hans Kamp.
Hans Kamp
> >
> > Chris S. <van...@my-deja.com> schreef in berichtnieuws
> > 7ngg16$ka5$1...@nnrp1.deja.com...
> > > tan...@dogbert.ucdavis.edu (Tomoyuki Tanaka) wrote:
> > >
> > > >
> > > > certain syllable-final z's getting unvoiced. in theory "dogs"
> > > > should be /dogz/. but almost all people say /dogs/.
> > >
> > >
too.
> > > Notice that it's not with an [o]...
> >
> > That is the American English pronunciation? However, there is no chance
of
> > confusion (that would be due to pronunciation).
>
> No, not "the" American English pronunciation -- remember all that stuff
> about cot and caught and merging low back vowels. It varies all over the
> place.
That is true... while I think about the 2 pronunciations of "Forrester"
(/'fOr@st@r/ and /'fAr@st@r) in the soap series "The Bold And The
Beautiful".
Hans Kamp.
Hans Kamp
Greg Lee <l...@Hawaii.edu> schreef in berichtnieuws
7nh03m$lcj$1...@news.hawaii.edu...
> In sci.lang Mike Wright <dar...@mbay.net> wrote:
> ...
> : Also, you were inconsistent in writing a voiced velar, [g], with a
voiceless
> : sibilant, [s]. If you're going to use [g] to show the lenis, voiceless
velar,
> : then for consistency you should write [z] to show the lenis, voiceless
sibilant:
> : [dOgz]. If you want to emphasize the voiceless feature, then IPA
"under-ring"
> : ('=' in ASCII IPA) can be used, and you can also show the vowel length
using the
> : colon: [dO:g=z=]. But [dogs] is just plain wrong.
>
> : If I got that wrong, I'm sure several of the linguists will correct me.
>
> voiced surroundings, but as you imply, they remain lenis and therefore
> phonetically distinct from corresponding phonemic p, t, k, s.
In that case I wouldn't deny that you are speaking an English dialect. When
I speak English I try to follow the pronunciation of British English. I
always say /dOgz/, except when followed by a voiceless consonants. "The dogs
find me stupid" I would pronounce as /D@ dOks faind mi: 'stju:pid/. But "I
am talking about dogs" I would pronounce as /AI &m 'to:kIN @'baud dOgz/.
Because "dogs" follows "about" I pronounce this as /@'baud/ instead
/@'baut/.
> So, I
> can hear a difference between "use" the verb, e.g., and "use" the noun,
> even though the last sounds are both voiceless.
I think I would pronounce the one as /ju:z/ and the other as /ju:s/. But
when the pronunciation of a word ends with a voiced consonant, I will always
try to pronounce that consonants voicedly.
> Now, I've said "dogs"
> over a bunch of times, and I really can't hear any difference between
> its last sound and the last sound of "docks". Using your notation,
> they sound to me like [d=O:g=s] and [d=aks].
>
> So, I'm not convinced that [dogs] ([dOgs]) is wrong.
Maybe it isn't wrong in your dialect. But in the English I learnd (okay it
is my third language) it *is* wrong.
Hans Kamp.
Mike Wright
>
> Mike Wright wrote:
>
> > ...I went on the Web to see what I could find out, and it seems that incorrect
> > information is being taught in some college linguistics courses. I couldn't find
> > a single site that matched what Greg and Mark are saying.
>
> realization of the plural suffix. GL and MR are talking about a different effect, the exact
> realization of the allophones of /s/ or /z/ in a particular environment (word or utterance-final,
> differing in whether following segments are voiced or unvoiced).
Okay. Going back I see that I missed the distinction based on environment in
both posts.
Now, back to the original post that started all this, which said: "in theory
"dogs" should be pronounced /dogz/. but almost all people say /dogs/."
Should this be taken as simply an error in using phonemic notation rather than
phonetic notation? And, since it doesn't mention the environment, is it not an
over-generalization in any case?
Fabian
James Follett <ja...@marage.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
news:933020...@marage.demon.co.uk...
> In article <7nhc86$nik$1...@mark.ucdavis.edu>
> tan...@dogbert.ucdavis.edu "Tomoyuki Tanaka" writes:
>
> >sound produced is very much like /dogs/.
> >i hope you'd do the experiment i described with a friend.
>
> Dear Mr Tanaka at Dogbreath,
>
> Would you please append your comments to the end of a repost rather
> than plonk them at the beginning. Surely your AUP makes this clear
> whether it's written in Jap or whatever heathen language you use.
The only heathen language he uses is English. He has apparently refused
to take a standard test to demonstrate any ability in Japanese, despite
an offer to have all related costs paid by an independant person in
another newsgroup. This suggests that he does not, in fact, have any
ability in Japanese.
[snip alt.onanie]
--
---
Fabian
Customers are advised to keep all personal belongings with them,
as abandoned luggage may cause a security alert.
Greg Lee
: speech. Next, I tried whispering, and I still felt a difference. I also tried
: saying [d=O:g=s], but it didn't sound right.
: But I don't have much faith in such experiments, because it's hard to speak
: naturally while paying attention, so I went a little farther. I recorded the
: following sentences using SoundMaker on my Mac:
...
Very interesting. Thanks for doing all this. It seems your pronunciation
is [dO:g=z=], right?
...
: I've noticed that adjacent sounds seem to affect one another in my speech
: (assimilation?). A particularly noticeable one is that I nasalize vowels that
: are followed by nasal consonants. (It's not as strong as Holo nasalization, but
: it's definitely there.) It seems unlikely to me that the laxness of [g=] would
: not affect the following s.
One could make a theoretical case that fortis [s] rather than lenis voiceless
[z=] would be expected in "dogs", because aperture/sonority should decrease
at the end of a syllable, and since [s]/[z=] has greater aperture than
[k]/[g=], there must be a syllable boundary between "g" and "s". Supposing
that consonants are ordinarily fortis except in the offset of a syllable,
this predicts lenis "g" but fortis "s".
In any case, I doubt there could be a progressive assimilation of laxness.
...
--
Greg Lee <l...@Hawaii.edu>
Ross Clark
>
> In article <7nh03m$lcj$1...@news.hawaii.edu>, Greg Lee <l...@Hawaii.edu> wrote:
> >voiced surroundings, but as you imply, they remain lenis and therefore
> >can hear a difference between "use" the verb, e.g., and "use" the noun,
> >over a bunch of times, and I really can't hear any difference between
> >its last sound and the last sound of "docks". Using your notation,
> >they sound to me like [d=O:g=s] and [d=aks].
> >
> >So, I'm not convinced that [dogs] ([dOgs]) is wrong.
>
> for voicing. I think [dOgs] is pretty accurate. (With "docks", by
> contrast, voicing seems to switch off halfway through the vowel.)
>
> That's 'dogs' sentence-finally, though; 'dogs are' has [dOgz].
Good point. I think the [dogs] in isolation is a correct observation,
but it results from an utterance-final shutdown of voicing which you
would also hear in, e.g. "adze" or "fudge". When there's a followig
word, the contrast between voiced "dogz are" and voiceless "docks are"
is quite clear.
Ross Clark
Lyndon Watson
> i once did this experiment with a friend: one whispers
> voiced-unvoiced minimal pairs (feed-feet, beep-peep,
> camber-camper, etc) with the mouth hidden, the other tries to
> guess which is said.
We might have believed that, if he referred to a lenis-fortis distinction instead
of voiced-unvoiced.
LW
Neil Coffey
> I get a Real Audio error #14--Requested file not found--for all the links.
Hmph... it looks like Demon's real audio server is being bolshy
or something. OK, I've changed the links slightly so that it should
at least play the samples, though it'll want to download them then
play them rather than streaming them (but the biggest one's only
about 60K, so it shouldn't be a big deal).
Sorry for inconvenience; hope it works now...
Neil
Sollers
is the tendency for unvoiced consonants to be lightly aspirated; so
even in a whisper there is a slight difference. Most English people are
not even aware of doing this, but hit problems with French which does
not aspirate unvoiced consonants, so that even when not whispered a
French "p" and "b" sound almost indistinguishable to English listeners
(South Welsh speakers of English aspirate even more; but then, in
Welsh, voiced or unvoiced initial consonants are a grammatical feature,
which makes one extra aware of them)
Chris S.
"Peter T. Daniels" <gram...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
> No, not "the" American English pronunciation -- remember all that
> stuff about cot and caught and merging low back vowels. It varies all
> over the place.
I remember a few years ago when I was taking the ELNA Esperanto course
by snail mail, the instructor sent me my first test. One of the
sections on the test was finding out the original English spelling of an
English word bounded by Esperanto spelling rules.
One of words was "kat." The closest word I could think of was "caught,"
so that's what I wrote. A week or two letter I received the
corrections, and on it was the "kat" question with a red mark. Next to
it was the word "cot." Which sounded okay to me. But what confused me
was why did she think there was a difference between caught and cot ? I
figured that Cathy Schulze was from England or Australia or something
where the pronunciation's different...
But I did check later on to see the phonetic transcription in a
dictionary and wondered if I was mispronouncing one of the words myself.
--Chris
--
...Mabuhay...
Visit / Visitez http://www.game-master.com
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Mark Rosenfelder
Sollers <solle...@my-deja.com> wrote:
> Ross Clark <benl...@ihug.co.nz> wrote:
>> Good point. I think the [dogs] in isolation is a correct observation,
>> but it results from an utterance-final shutdown of voicing which you
>> would also hear in, e.g. "adze" or "fudge". When there's a followig
>> word, the contrast between voiced "dogz are" and voiceless "docks are"
>> is quite clear.
>>
>is the tendency for unvoiced consonants to be lightly aspirated; so
>even in a whisper there is a slight difference.
It's true for American English as well. But only word-initially, which
is why it's not relevant for the ending of 'dogs'.
John Doherty
(Tomoyuki Tanaka) wrote:
| isn't James Follett a rather well known author?
I don't really think so. I never heard of him until showed up here.
| note his use of "Jap".
He's like that. Just tell him he's an inbred gap-toothed sheep-fucking
English idler and let it go.
In a way, you can forgive him. I mean, if you lived in England, you'd
probably prefer to fuck sheep, too. It's sort of amazing those folks
ever managed to become inbred.
Mr. Follet does seem to enjoy a good insult, though. You've got to give
him credit for that.
--
Hans Kamp
Mike Wright <dar...@mbay.net> schreef in berichtnieuws
379CD50D...@mbay.net...
A question: If you pronounce "father" and then "bother", do these two words
rhyme? I think in American English they do, but in British English they
don't.
> I recorded these several times, varying stress and loudness, sometimes
saying
> one first, sometimes the other, trying to speak naturally. I still felt
that I
> could hear a difference.
Of course: my pronunciation would be: dogs /dOgz/, togs /tOgz/, talks
/tO:ks/. That difference is also visible in IPA and the Kirshenbaum notation
(we use here).
> I tried highlighting just the s portion of each, and they did sound
different,
> but the sounds were so brief that I couldn't say just what the difference
was,
> but it seemed like the "same kind" of difference each time.
Voiced and voiceless?
> The waveforms looked
> different, too, but I'm not sure that means much. I couldn't judge whether
it
> was due to a significant difference in articulation or just an accidental
> variation in my speech.
You can only be sure, if you repeat one word 10 or 15 times and look at the
variation of your sample. Then you know what differences you can ignore and
what differences you shouldn't.
> Then I replaced the s portion in "talks" with the same portion from
"togs", and
> it didn't sound too bad. But, when I reversed the process, "togs" sounded
really odd.
/tO:kz/ and /tOgs/?
> This wasn't a rigorously performed experiment, though I tried to be
careful, but
> it left me feeling that there is a definite difference between the two s's
in my
> speech. Surely someone has actually done all the relevant experiments with
> proper lab equipment, and the results are in the literature somewhere. And
> surely some the linguists out there in sci.lang-land know where to look,
if
> they're really interested.
You could touch your Adam's apple and feel whether it is vibrating or not.
> I've noticed that adjacent sounds seem to affect one another in my speech
> (assimilation?). A particularly noticeable one is that I nasalize vowels
that
> are followed by nasal consonants. (It's not as strong as Holo
nasalization, but
> it's definitely there.) It seems unlikely to me that the laxness of [g=]
would
> not affect the following s.
A normal process in English I guess. Maybe "An Introduction to Language"
written by Fromkin and Rodman might interest you.
I don't know. Perhaps they are not aware about the pronunciation rules of
the English language. Are those "so many people" native speakers of English?
I myself am not.
Hans Kamp.
Hans Kamp
> > check for voicing. I think [dOgs] is pretty accurate. (With "docks",
> > by contrast, voicing seems to switch off halfway through the vowel.)
> >
> > That's 'dogs' sentence-finally, though; 'dogs are' has [dOgz].
>
> they're the same sound except that the latter is rounded and the other
> isn't. Sometimes I can't distinguish between the two sounds, though.
What about "father" and "bother"? Do they rhyme or not? In British English
they don't, but in American English they do.
Hans Kamp.
Hans Kamp
Sollers <solle...@my-deja.com> schreef in berichtnieuws
7njftu$iml$1...@nnrp1.deja.com...
> > >
> > > In article <7nh03m$lcj$1...@news.hawaii.edu>, Greg Lee
> <l...@Hawaii.edu> wrote:
> > > >Like some others, I usually devoice obstruents like b, d, g, z,
> except in
> > > >voiced surroundings, but as you imply, they remain lenis and
> therefore
> > > >phonetically distinct from corresponding phonemic p, t, k, s. So,
> I
> > > >can hear a difference between "use" the verb, e.g., and "use" the
> noun,
> > > >even though the last sounds are both voiceless. Now, I've
> said "dogs"
> > > >over a bunch of times, and I really can't hear any difference
> between
> > > >its last sound and the last sound of "docks". Using your notation,
> > > >they sound to me like [d=O:g=s] and [d=aks].
> > > >
> > > >So, I'm not convinced that [dogs] ([dOgs]) is wrong.
> > >
> to check
> > > for voicing. I think [dOgs] is pretty accurate. (With "docks", by
> > > contrast, voicing seems to switch off halfway through the vowel.)
> > >
> > > That's 'dogs' sentence-finally, though; 'dogs are' has [dOgz].
> >
> > but it results from an utterance-final shutdown of voicing which you
> > would also hear in, e.g. "adze" or "fudge". When there's a followig
> > word, the contrast between voiced "dogz are" and voiceless "docks are"
> > is quite clear.
> >
> >
> One thing I have noticed, but may onlyhold for English English usage,
> is the tendency for unvoiced consonants to be lightly aspirated; so
> even in a whisper there is a slight difference.
In fact while I am whispering I hear only a difference between /p/ - /b/,
/t/ - /d/, /k/ - /g/. I hear no difference between /s/ - /z/ and /f/ - /v/.
> Most English people are
> not even aware of doing this, but hit problems with French which does
> not aspirate unvoiced consonants, so that even when not whispered a
> French "p" and "b" sound almost indistinguishable to English listeners
Also in Dutch. Algemeen Beschaafd Nederlands doesn't have aspirated /p/, /t/
en /k/, only in its dialects.
Hans Kamp.
Peter T. Daniels
> > No, you still say /dogz/, and it comes out [d=og=z=].
>
> When I wisper "dogs" I say /d"Oks/, where /d"/ stands for unvoiced /d/, but
> that is not quite identical with /t/, because de /t/ is aspirated. While
> whispering, I am not able to say /gz/ at the end, because I am not using the
> voice, which is needed for saying /gz/. The result therefore is: /ks/.
> Therefore I agree with Ben.
If you were an English-speaker, and you whispered <dogs> and <dawks>,
they would not come out identical, and you would know which was which.
Therefore, voicing is not the sole identificatory criterion of d ~ t, g
~ k, z ~ s.
--
Peter T. Daniels gram...@worldnet.att.net
Skitt
> Neil Coffey wrote:
> >
> > Mike Wright wrote:
> >
> > > I get a Real Audio error #14--Requested file not found--for all the
links.
> >
> > Hmph... it looks like Demon's real audio server is being bolshy
> > or something. OK, I've changed the links slightly so that it should
> > at least play the samples, though it'll want to download them then
> > play them rather than streaming them (but the biggest one's only
> > about 60K, so it shouldn't be a big deal).
>
document.
>
> I'm using version 5.0.2 of Real Player for the Mac, which seems to be the
latest available.
The new versions of Neil's files work for me. (PC and RealAudio Plus.)
--
Skitt (on Florida's Space Coast) http://skitt.i.am/
CAUTION: My veracity is under a limited warranty
Skitt
I <sk...@i.am> wrote in message news:7nk61s$7j...@svlss.lmms.lmco.com...
>
> Mike Wright <dar...@mbay.net> wrote in message
> news:379D3A21...@mbay.net...
> > Neil Coffey wrote:
> > >
> > > Mike Wright wrote:
> > >
> > > > I get a Real Audio error #14--Requested file not found--for all the
> links.
> > >
> > > Hmph... it looks like Demon's real audio server is being bolshy
> > > or something. OK, I've changed the links slightly so that it should
> > > at least play the samples, though it'll want to download them then
> > > play them rather than streaming them (but the biggest one's only
> > > about 60K, so it shouldn't be a big deal).
> >
> > Now I get error #11--This document is not a RealAudio or RealVideo
> document.
> >
> > I'm using version 5.0.2 of Real Player for the Mac, which seems to be
the
> latest available.
>
> The new versions of Neil's files work for me. (PC and RealAudio Plus.)
They work for me at my workplace also (PC, NT, RealPlayer 6.0.6.45)
mith...@indiana.edu
Mike Wright wrote:
> Now, back to the original post that started all this, which said: "in theory
> "dogs" should be pronounced /dogz/. but almost all people say /dogs/."
>
> Should this be taken as simply an error in using phonemic notation rather than
> phonetic notation?
Yes, I think so. MAT
James Follett
jdoh...@ix.netcom.com "John Doherty" writes:
>I don't really think so. I never heard of him until showed up here.
I'm not published in America therefore I don't exist.
>
>| note his use of "Jap".
>
>He's like that. Just tell him he's an inbred gap-toothed sheep-fucking
>English idler and let it go.
That's a bit below the belt. I'm not gap-toothed.
>In a way, you can forgive him. I mean, if you lived in England, you'd
>probably prefer to fuck sheep, too. It's sort of amazing those folks
>ever managed to become inbred.
This is a particularly miserable time of year for us. The sheep around
here have all been shorn so that there's nothing to hang onto, and I
never did master the Wellington boot technique despite the huge numbers
of helpful Japanese, American and Australian websites on the subject.
As for being inbred, there are about 55 million Brits. Think how many
more there would be if our girls weren't so ugly, and our sheep weren't
so pretty.
--
James Follett -- novelist http://www.davew.demon.co.uk
ntaylor
> jdoh...@ix.netcom.com "John Doherty" writes:
>
>>I don't really think so. I never heard of him until showed up here.
>
>I'm not published in America therefore I don't exist.
>
>>
based around Grizedale in the Lakes. I was part of a group of young men
who having done our army service were [planting trees for the Forestry
Commission in 1948. Should go back and see how those 18 inch
trees have grown after 50 years.
Have looked in California bookshops for your novels with no
luck.Plenty of copies of Ken Follet's works, though.
Robert Lieblich
Advanced Book Exchange ( www.abebooks.com ) offers more than a hundred
volumes (duplications aplenty) by Jimbo, all used. No sheep, however,
used or otherwise.
[Tanaks newsgroups clipped. Guy has his own newsgroups; who does he
think he is -- Bill Palmer?]
Bob Lieblich
Richard Fontana
>ntaylor wrote:
>>
>> >In article <jdoherty-270...@aus-tx29-52.ix.netcom.com>
>> > jdoh...@ix.netcom.com "John Doherty" writes:
>> >
>> >>I don't really think so. I never heard of him until showed up here.
>> >
>> >I'm not published in America therefore I don't exist.
>> >
>> >>
>> >I wish they were, I understand you have written some novels
>> based around Grizedale in the Lakes. I was part of a group of young men
>> who having done our army service were [planting trees for the Forestry
>> Commission in 1948. Should go back and see how those 18 inch
>> trees have grown after 50 years.
>> Have looked in California bookshops for your novels with no
>> luck.Plenty of copies of Ken Follet's works, though.
>
>Advanced Book Exchange ( www.abebooks.com ) offers more than a hundred
>volumes (duplications aplenty) by Jimbo, all used.
It also looks to me like at least some of his books are available for
American purchasers through amazon.com.
RF
Aaron J. Dinkin
Rosenfelder) wrote:
> In article <7nio5f$3nc$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>, Chris S. <van...@my-deja.com>
wrote:
> >In article <7ni8i6$a73$1...@eve.enteract.com>,
> > mark...@enteract.com (Mark Rosenfelder) wrote:
> >> Ditto. I tried the same thing, with my finger on my Adam's apple to
> >> check for voicing. I think [dOgs] is pretty accurate. (With "docks",
> >> by contrast, voicing seems to switch off halfway through the vowel.)
> >>
> >> That's 'dogs' sentence-finally, though; 'dogs are' has [dOgz].
> >
> >Is there any "pronunciation boundary" in the US where people pronounce
> >the "o" in dogs as [A] and the other as [O]....
>
> Yes; most notably, the two sounds merge in the West. See Labov's map at
> http://www.ling.upenn.edu/phono_atlas/ICSLP4.html#Heading2
That's not how I understood the question. I thought Chris was asking about
dialects that distinguish between (say) "caught" and "cot" and in which
"dog" has the vowel of "caught", not dialects in which "caught" and "cot"
have merged.
Thanks for that URL, by the way.
> >I understand that
> >they're the same sound except that the latter is rounded and the other
> >isn't. Sometimes I can't distinguish between the two sounds, though.
>
> For me, [O] is higher, as well.
Eh? Isn't [O] by definition higher? I though phones were supposed to be
objective.
-Aaron J. Dinkin
Dr. Whom
Greg Lee
: Greg Lee <l...@Hawaii.edu> schreef in berichtnieuws
...
: >
: > So, I'm not convinced that [dogs] ([dOgs]) is wrong.
: Maybe it isn't wrong in your dialect. But in the English I learnd (okay it
: is my third language) it *is* wrong.
I should have said I'm not convinced it's an inaccurate transcription
of an existing English dialectal pronunciation. I didn't mean to imply
that it was correct, or prevalent, or occurs in your speech. (How
could I know how you say it?)
--
Greg Lee <l...@Hawaii.edu>
Greg Lee
: "dogs" should be pronounced /dogz/. but almost all people say /dogs/."
: Should this be taken as simply an error in using phonemic notation rather than
: phonetic notation? And, since it doesn't mention the environment, is it not an
: over-generalization in any case?
That's how I took it -- as a minor notational error. It might be an
overgeneralization, but I don't know whether the environment is
always important for all dialects. All we have is some personal
testimony that it's sometimes important.
--
Greg Lee <l...@Hawaii.edu>
Lyndon Watson
> If you were an English-speaker, and you whispered <dogs> and <dawks>,
> they would not come out identical, and you would know which was which.
> Therefore, voicing is not the sole identificatory criterion of d ~ t, g
> ~ k, z ~ s.
I am a native English speaker and "dogs" and "dawks" do not come out
identical when I whisper them. But that implies nothing about my
pronunciation of the various consonants, because I have used two quite
different vowels.
On the other hand, the fact that "dogs" and "docks" also sound different
when I whisper them does show that the fortis-lenis distinction persists
when the voiced-voiceless one disappears.
LW
Mike Wright
> A question: If you pronounce "father" and then "bother", do these two words
> rhyme? I think in American English they do,
Yes, they rhyme.
>but in British English they don't.
Well, they're foreigners, you know.
> > I tried highlighting just the s portion of each, and they did sound
> different,
> > but the sounds were so brief that I couldn't say just what the difference
> was,
> > but it seemed like the "same kind" of difference each time.
>
> Voiced and voiceless?
[...]
Hard to say.
Mike Wright
> : speech. Next, I tried whispering, and I still felt a difference. I also tried
> : saying [d=O:g=s], but it didn't sound right.
>
> : But I don't have much faith in such experiments, because it's hard to speak
> : naturally while paying attention, so I went a little farther. I recorded the
> : following sentences using SoundMaker on my Mac:
>
> Very interesting. Thanks for doing all this. It seems your pronunciation
> is [dO:g=z=], right?
So it seems--if not [d=O:g=z=]. The actual voicing may depend on the
environment, but I'm pretty sure that I have [z] or [z=] rather than [s].
When I try to consciously say [d=O:g=s], it definitely sounds wrong, but I can't
be sure that that is not just a side-effect of the unnaturalness of "trying".
The [s] seems too strong somehow. At first I thought that it's more aspirated,
but that doesn't seem to be the case. I just can't pin it down.
> ...
> : I've noticed that adjacent sounds seem to affect one another in my speech
> : (assimilation?). A particularly noticeable one is that I nasalize vowels that
> : are followed by nasal consonants. (It's not as strong as Holo nasalization, but
> : it's definitely there.) It seems unlikely to me that the laxness of [g=] would
> : not affect the following s.
>
> One could make a theoretical case that fortis [s] rather than lenis voiceless
> [z=] would be expected in "dogs", because aperture/sonority should decrease
> at the end of a syllable,
Does that mean *either* apeture *or* sonority--rather than aperture *and* sonority?
If so, does a "decrease in sonority" include a vowel or voiced consonant
gradually going silent? That would take care of all open syllables and those
ending in nasals and liquids, I suppose.
> and since [s]/[z=] has greater aperture than
> [k]/[g=], there must be a syllable boundary between "g" and "s".
I do believe that that's what sounds "wrong" about [d=O:g=s]. The [s] sounds
"separate"--like a separate syllable.
> Supposing
> that consonants are ordinarily fortis except in the offset of a syllable,
> this predicts lenis "g" but fortis "s".
All consonants? Or only "voiced" consonants? I mean, you're not saying that
syllables can't start with lenis consonants, are you> Or are you? (Sorry to be
so dense.)
Also, are there really two only distinct categories, "lenis" and "fortis", with
no fuzzy categories in between? Is there reason to believe that my [z=] could
not be more "fortis" than my [g=] while still being less fortis than my [s] in,
for example, [t'Oks]?
> In any case, I doubt there could be a progressive assimilation of laxness.
And if I really do say [d=O:g=z=], this means what in terms of the theory?
While it's on my mind, one more question. What about affricates vs. consonant
clusters? Should we expect "edge" to be [EdZ] rather than [EdS], but "Ed's" to
be [Eds]?
--
Mike "More Questions Than His Granddaughter" Wright
Hans Kamp
Greg Lee <l...@Hawaii.edu> schreef in berichtnieuws
O, sorry.
Hans Kamp.
Hans Kamp
> Hans Kamp wrote:
> >
> > Mike Wright <dar...@mbay.net> schreef in berichtnieuws
> > 379CD50D...@mbay.net..
> > > I tried highlighting just the s portion of each, and they did sound
> > different,
> > > but the sounds were so brief that I couldn't say just what the
difference
> > was,
> > > but it seemed like the "same kind" of difference each time.
> >
> > Voiced and voiceless?
>
> Hard to say.
You will know, if you pronounce "dogs" and "docks" very slowly and you touch
your Adams' apple.
Hans Kamp.
Hans Kamp
> While it's on my mind, one more question. What about affricates vs.
consonant
> clusters? Should we expect "edge" to be [EdZ] rather than [EdS], but
"Ed's" to
> be [Eds]?
I would pronounce "edge" as /edZ/ end "Ed's" as /edz/.
Hans Kamp.
Chris S.
"Hans Kamp" <hans...@introweb.nl> wrote:
> What about "father" and "bother"? Do they rhyme or not? In British
> English they don't, but in American English they do.
To me, they rhyme.
James Follett
tay...@tidepool.com "ntaylor" writes:
>>I'm not published in America therefore I don't exist.
>>
>>>
>>I wish they were, I understand you have written some novels
>based around Grizedale in the Lakes.
Yes -- two books set around Grizedale in the Lake District. Grizedale
Hall was demolished in 1957. The stables are still there but the hall
site is now a car park for a campsite. Just opposite is the Theatre
in the Forest -- a strange little 100-seat theatre buried in the woods.
Getting published in America is very difficult for British writers.
The stock answer of US publishers is: `We just love your books but
your style is too English for American readers.' Which translates as:
`We hate your books.' After nearly 25 years, I've decided that I don't
mind. Doubleday did publish a couple, as did St Martins, and Houghton-
Mifflin. There are some US bookshops who buy large numbers of copies
direct from Random House, London.
Brian M. Scott
[...]
> While it's on my mind, one more question. What about affricates vs. consonant
> clusters? Should we expect "edge" to be [EdZ] rather than [EdS], but "Ed's" to
> be [Eds]?
Somewhat to my surprise, I seem to be saying [Ed=s]. I'm pretty sure
about the [d=], and the sibilant seems distinctly tenser than [z=].
Brian M. Scott
Hans Kamp
> In article <93306650...@tbird.introweb.nl>,
> "Hans Kamp" <hans...@introweb.nl> wrote:
>
> > What about "father" and "bother"? Do they rhyme or not? In British
> > English they don't, but in American English they do.
>
> To me, they rhyme.
Then, is your native tongue American English?
Hans Kamp.
Bob Lipton
Perhaps. I think you are suffering from a delusion: that all
inhabitants of Britain south of Scotland and east of Wales speak exactly
he same, and that all Americans have precisely the same accent.
Accents vary slightly from individual to individual. I may group a
particular allophone in one phoneme and my brother in another.
There is a tendency, whenever a certain class of individual hears a
particular usage that differs from that individual's, to assume it is a
foreign influence. To put it briefly, when an Englishman hears a usage
that differs from his own, he decries it as an American barbarism. If
he hears it on the BBC, he moans about how standards have collapsed to
let such vulgar American usages in.
I myself pronounce "father" to rhyme with "bother" but not 'brother.'
Live with it.
On to more serious concerns: has anyone noticed that during Polar's
absence there was no discussion of sheep but now that she's back, there
is? I don't believe this a coincidence.
Bob
Peter T. Daniels
> I myself pronounce "father" to rhyme with "bother" but not 'brother.'
> Live with it.
Is there someplace where "father" rhymes with "brother"?
Peter T. Daniels
>
> On Wed, 28 Jul 1999 23:14:32 -0400, "Peter T. Daniels"
> <gram...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
>
> >Bob Lipton wrote:
> >
> >> I myself pronounce "father" to rhyme with "bother" but not 'brother.'
> >> Live with it.
> >
> >Is there someplace where "father" rhymes with "brother"?
>
Would I have asked if I didn't?
Greg Lee
...
: > One could make a theoretical case that fortis [s] rather than lenis voiceless
: > [z=] would be expected in "dogs", because aperture/sonority should decrease
: > at the end of a syllable,
: Does that mean *either* apeture *or* sonority--rather than aperture *and* sonority?
Either or both, as appropriate. Whatever it is that normally increases through
the beginning of a syllable and normally decreases through its end. Saussure
said aperture, recently it's been called sonority. Neither term seems quite
right. It's a mystery.
: If so, does a "decrease in sonority" include a vowel or voiced consonant
: gradually going silent? That would take care of all open syllables and those
: ending in nasals and liquids, I suppose.
It should include a vowel. There's something wrong with my wording here.
Instead of saying that sonority decreases at the end of a syllable, I perhaps
should have said it fails to increase.
The case of a voiced consonant would be included on Saussure's interpretation.
...
: > Supposing
: > that consonants are ordinarily fortis except in the offset of a syllable,
: > this predicts lenis "g" but fortis "s".
: All consonants? Or only "voiced" consonants? I mean, you're not saying that
: syllables can't start with lenis consonants, are you> Or are you? (Sorry to be
: so dense.)
I'm saying there's a tendency -- it could be stated implicationally. If there's
there a fortis/lenis difference that depends on position in the syllable,
one might find fortis on the onset and/or lenis in the offset, but never
lenis in the onset and fortis in the offset. (As in vowel reduction --
it's never just stressed vowels that reduce.)
: Also, are there really two only distinct categories, "lenis" and "fortis", with
: no fuzzy categories in between? Is there reason to believe that my [z=] could
: not be more "fortis" than my [g=] while still being less fortis than my [s] in,
: for example, [t'Oks]?
I don't know.
: > In any case, I doubt there could be a progressive assimilation of laxness.
: And if I really do say [d=O:g=z=], this means what in terms of the theory?
Oh, probably not a lot. The theory is rather vague. The status of extrasyllabic
final consonants is rather dubious, anyway. Your case is rather like that
of initial "st" clusters where obviously the aperture is not increasing as
it's supposed to. What phonologists have been saying about such cases boils
down to "where aperture/sonority works the way it should, my principles
explain things, but if it doesn't work that way, that's ok too."
: While it's on my mind, one more question. What about affricates vs. consonant
: clusters? Should we expect "edge" to be [EdZ] rather than [EdS], but "Ed's" to
: be [Eds]?
I suppose so. I don't know of any phonological differences between affricates
and corresponding clusters.
--
Greg Lee <l...@Hawaii.edu>