a weird regularity in English
anal...@hotmail.com
particular cannot occur after the vowels in the names of the vowels).
Is this just something that happens to be true or are historical
reasons known why it is so?
Christian Weisgerber
Historically, /N/ only followed short vowels. Or alternatively,
/N/ shortened preceding vowels. In Modern English, /N/ can form a
syllable coda, but in earlier stages of the language, [N] was an
allophone of /n/ before /k/ or /g/. Since then there has been a
partial development [Ng] > [N].
Thus the historical situation was this: only short vowels before
the clusters /ng/ and /nk/. Which seems unremarkable, because
English tended to have short vowels before most consonant clusters
anyway.
--
Christian "naddy" Weisgerber na...@mips.inka.de
Harlan Messinger
> Apparently, the velar nasal N can only occur after "lax"vowels (in
> particular cannot occur after the vowels in the names of the vowels).
Your analysis is incorrect. It occurs after tense [A] as in "gong" (at
least, in my U.S. English in which "Don" and "Dawn" have [A] and [O],
respectively, as do "cot" and "caught", and, for that matter "gong" and
"song"). It occurs after tense [i] as in "ring", where it sounds like
the name of the letter "E".
On the other hand, [N] doesn't occur after lax [I], the vowel in "rip".
It also doesn't occur after lax [&], the vowel in "rap". (I forget just
how the folks here will characterize the nature of the vowel in "rang",
but I'm sure it will come up.) I know you didn't claim that it occurs
after all lax vowels, but given that you were trying to establish a high
correlation between the possibility of [N] after a vowel and the
tenseness of the vowel, I wanted to make it extra clear that there isn't
one.
Harlan Messinger
I wonder what the incidence is of [N] in English speakers' pronunciation
of "vainglorious" or "Don Quixote".
Brian M. Scott
<h.remo...@gavelcade.com> wrote in
<news:94nc8q...@mid.individual.net> in sci.lang:
> On 5/31/2011 7:07 PM, anal...@hotmail.com wrote:
>> Apparently, the velar nasal N can only occur after
>> "lax"vowels (in particular cannot occur after the vowels
>> in the names of the vowels).
> Your analysis is incorrect. It occurs after tense [A] as
> in "gong" (at least, in my U.S. English in which "Don"
> and "Dawn" have [A] and [O], respectively, as do "cot"
> and "caught", and, for that matter "gong" and "song").
For me <gong> and <song> have [A.], which is traditionally
classified as lax.
> It occurs after tense [i] as in "ring", where it sounds
> like the name of the letter "E".
My <ring> is definitely /rIN/.
> On the other hand, [N] doesn't occur after lax [I], the
> vowel in "rip".
It certainly does in my English: sing, thing, wing, ... all
have [I]. The [N] may raise the vowel a little, but by no
means to /i:/.
> It also doesn't occur after lax [&], the vowel in "rap".
Again, it certainly does in my English: sang, rang, hang,
... all have [æ].
[...]
Brian
Harlan Messinger
> On Wed, 01 Jun 2011 13:47:04 -0400, Harlan Messinger
> <h.remo...@gavelcade.com> wrote in
> <news:94nc8q...@mid.individual.net> in sci.lang:
>
>> On 5/31/2011 7:07 PM, anal...@hotmail.com wrote:
>
>>> Apparently, the velar nasal N can only occur after
>>> "lax"vowels (in particular cannot occur after the vowels
>>> in the names of the vowels).
>
>> Your analysis is incorrect. It occurs after tense [A] as
>> in "gong" (at least, in my U.S. English in which "Don"
>> and "Dawn" have [A] and [O], respectively, as do "cot"
>> and "caught", and, for that matter "gong" and "song").
>
> For me<gong> and<song> have [A.], which is traditionally
> classified as lax.
>
>> It occurs after tense [i] as in "ring", where it sounds
>> like the name of the letter "E".
>
> My<ring> is definitely /rIN/.
I'm not going to sit through another endless round of discussions on
phonemic classification. The vowel in "sing" is the vowel in "seen",
[i], not the one in "sin" or even "singe" or "ingrate", [I].
>> On the other hand, [N] doesn't occur after lax [I], the
>> vowel in "rip".
>
> It certainly does in my English: sing, thing, wing, ... all
> have [I].
I very seriously doubt that.
> The [N] may raise the vowel a little, but by no
> means to /i:/.
>
>> It also doesn't occur after lax [&], the vowel in "rap".
>
> Again, it certainly does in my English: sang, rang, hang,
> ... all have [æ].
Again, I very seriously doubt that.
Harlan Messinger
> On 6/1/2011 3:20 PM, Brian M. Scott wrote:
>>
>> My<ring> is definitely /rIN/.
>
> I'm not going to sit through another endless round of discussions on
> phonemic classification. The vowel in "sing" is the vowel in "seen",
> [i], not the one in "sin" or even "singe" or "ingrate", [I].
More elaboration: "sing", "sink", "seen", "seek" all have virtually the
same vowel, which is not that of "sig", "sick", or "sin".
Adam Funk
I've seen "Donkey Hotey" in some of those [allegedly] real lists of
howlers' from exam answers & homework.
--
"It is the role of librarians to keep government running in difficult
times," replied Dramoren. "Librarians are the last line of defence
against chaos." (McMullen 2001)
Nathan Sanders
> On 6/1/2011 3:34 PM, Harlan Messinger wrote:
>> On 6/1/2011 3:20 PM, Brian M. Scott wrote:
>
>>>
>>> My<ring> is definitely /rIN/.
>>
>> I'm not going to sit through another endless round of discussions on
>> phonemic classification.
Yep, the phoneme choice here is largely irrelevant. Either /I/ or /i/
work equally well, since the contrast between them is neutralized before
/N/. Barring other evidence (e.g., morphologically related words or
interaction with rules like Canadian Raising) or other theory-specific
considerations (e.g., concreteness in phonemic representations), there's
no reason to pick one over the other. In fact, if you're going for as
minimal a representation as possible, you'd choose something more
abstract, something that is not specified as either tense or lax.
It's the same issue as choosing a phoneme for the flap in "matter" and
"spider" for most dialects. You can choose either /t/ or /d/ (or
something more abstract), with no difference in how the observable facts
are described.
>> The vowel in "sing" is the vowel in "seen",
>> [i], not the one in "sin" or even "singe" or "ingrate", [I].
>
> More elaboration: "sing", "sink", "seen", "seek" all have virtually the
> same vowel, which is not that of "sig", "sick", or "sin".
They do for me, too, roughly speaking (slightly lower and backer, but
definitely closer to [i] than [I]). But I got made fun of in college
for that pronunciation, because everyone else used something closer to [I].
Some idiolects have something close to [I], some have something close to
[i], and some have something in between.
Nathan
--
Department of Linguistics
Swarthmore College
http://sanders.phonologist.org
Brian M. Scott
<h.remo...@gavelcade.com> wrote in
<news:94nii2...@mid.individual.net> in sci.lang:
> On 6/1/2011 3:20 PM, Brian M. Scott wrote:
[...]
> The vowel in "sing" is the vowel in "seen", [i], not the
> one in "sin" or even "singe" or "ingrate", [I].
For some people. Definitely not for me. I'm very familiar
with that pronunciation, and it still sounds distinctly odd
to me.
>>> On the other hand, [N] doesn't occur after lax [I], the
>>> vowel in "rip".
>> It certainly does in my English: sing, thing, wing, ... all
>> have [I].
> I very seriously doubt that.
Your doubt doesn't change the facts.
>> The [N] may raise the vowel a little, but by no
>> means to /i:/.
Or to [i(:)], since I agree that phonemic analysis isn't the
issue.
>>> It also doesn't occur after lax [&], the vowel in "rap".
>> Again, it certainly does in my English: sang, rang, hang,
>> ... all have [æ].
> Again, I very seriously doubt that.
And again your doubt doesn't change the facts.
Brian
António Marques
> On 6/1/2011 3:20 PM, Brian M. Scott wrote:
>> On Wed, 01 Jun 2011 13:47:04 -0400, Harlan Messinger
>> <h.remo...@gavelcade.com> wrote in
>> <news:94nc8q...@mid.individual.net> in sci.lang:
>>> "rip".
>>
>> It certainly does in my English: sing, thing, wing, ... all have [I].
>
> I very seriously doubt that.
Whoa. One doesn't talk like that to The Brian!
Bart Mathias
"Brian M. Scott" <b.s...@csuohio.edu> wrote:
> On Wed, 01 Jun 2011 13:47:04 -0400, Harlan Messinger
> <h.remo...@gavelcade.com> wrote in
> <news:94nc8q...@mid.individual.net> in sci.lang:
>
> > On 5/31/2011 7:07 PM, anal...@hotmail.com wrote:
>
> >> Apparently, the velar nasal N can only occur after
> >> "lax"vowels (in particular cannot occur after the vowels
> >> in the names of the vowels).
>
> > [...]
> > It occurs after tense [i] as in "ring", where it sounds
> > like the name of the letter "E".
>
> My <ring> is definitely /rIN/.
When I was a grad student back about 1962, I was able to do an informal survey
of people who had come to a meeting where I was presenting a paper. For me,
"...ing" is /...iyN/ (= /...iN/), but I was shocked to discover that I was in
a decided minority, perhaps something like four to one in favor of /...IN/.
Similarly, I don't (or at least didn't at the time) have /(...)Eg/ ~=
/(...)eg/, and again found myself in the minority. For most of the group, "egg"
and "vague" didn't rhyme as they do for me.
--
Bart Mathias <mat...@hawaii.edu>
Alan Munn
Harlan Messinger <h.remo...@gavelcade.com> wrote:
> On 6/1/2011 3:20 PM, Brian M. Scott wrote:
> > On Wed, 01 Jun 2011 13:47:04 -0400, Harlan Messinger
> > <h.remo...@gavelcade.com> wrote in
> > <news:94nc8q...@mid.individual.net> in sci.lang:
> >
> >> On 5/31/2011 7:07 PM, anal...@hotmail.com wrote:
> >
> >>> Apparently, the velar nasal N can only occur after
> >>> "lax"vowels (in particular cannot occur after the vowels
> >>> in the names of the vowels).
> >
> >> Your analysis is incorrect. It occurs after tense [A] as
> >> in "gong" (at least, in my U.S. English in which "Don"
> >> and "Dawn" have [A] and [O], respectively, as do "cot"
> >> and "caught", and, for that matter "gong" and "song").
> >
> > For me<gong> and<song> have [A.], which is traditionally
> > classified as lax.
> >
> >> It occurs after tense [i] as in "ring", where it sounds
> >> like the name of the letter "E".
> >
> > My<ring> is definitely /rIN/.
>
> I'm not going to sit through another endless round of discussions on
> phonemic classification. The vowel in "sing" is the vowel in "seen",
> [i], not the one in "sin" or even "singe" or "ingrate", [I].
Except when it's not. For me and Brian, and I suspect many others. In
fact, in years of teaching intro linguistics to American students in
various parts of the country, I don't think I've come across this
pronunciation. And in fact, probably every intro ling textbook as
"sing" and "sin" as a minimal pair to show that [n] and [N] are phonemic.
>
> >> On the other hand, [N] doesn't occur after lax [I], the
> >> vowel in "rip".
> >
> > It certainly does in my English: sing, thing, wing, ... all
> > have [I].
>
> I very seriously doubt that.
Why on earth should you. See above.
>
> > The [N] may raise the vowel a little, but by no
> > means to /i:/.
> >
> >> It also doesn't occur after lax [&], the vowel in "rap".
> >
> > Again, it certainly does in my English: sang, rang, hang,
> > ... all have [æ].
>
> Again, I very seriously doubt that.
I agree completely with Brian's judgements.
Alan
Joe Fineman
> On 6/1/11 3:37 PM, Harlan Messinger wrote:
>> More elaboration: "sing", "sink", "seen", "seek" all have virtually
>> the same vowel, which is not that of "sig", "sick", or "sin".
>
> They do for me, too, roughly speaking (slightly lower and backer,
> but definitely closer to [i] than [I]). But I got made fun of in
> college for that pronunciation, because everyone else used something
> closer to [I].
If I deliberately pronounce "sing" with the vowel of "seen", I sound
as if I were making fun of someone with a Mexican accent.
--
--- Joe Fineman jo...@verizon.net
||: Pleasure is an important good, and so its corruption is an :||
||: important evil. :||
Alan Munn
Nathan Sanders <san...@alum.mit.edu> wrote:
> On 6/1/11 3:37 PM, Harlan Messinger wrote:
> > On 6/1/2011 3:34 PM, Harlan Messinger wrote:
> >> On 6/1/2011 3:20 PM, Brian M. Scott wrote:
> >
> >>>
> >>> My<ring> is definitely /rIN/.
> >>
> >> I'm not going to sit through another endless round of discussions on
> >> phonemic classification.
>
> Yep, the phoneme choice here is largely irrelevant. Either /I/ or /i/
> work equally well, since the contrast between them is neutralized before
> /N/.
Are you sure? For me, "sing" [sIN] is distinct from "seeing" [sijN].
> Barring other evidence (e.g., morphologically related words or
> interaction with rules like Canadian Raising) or other theory-specific
> considerations (e.g., concreteness in phonemic representations), there's
> no reason to pick one over the other. In fact, if you're going for as
> minimal a representation as possible, you'd choose something more
> abstract, something that is not specified as either tense or lax.
>
> It's the same issue as choosing a phoneme for the flap in "matter" and
> "spider" for most dialects. You can choose either /t/ or /d/ (or
> something more abstract), with no difference in how the observable facts
> are described.
I know it's hard to tease out from a spelling pronunciation, but surely
some flapped /t/ is pronounced as [t] whereas flapped /d/ never is.
>
> >> The vowel in "sing" is the vowel in "seen",
> >> [i], not the one in "sin" or even "singe" or "ingrate", [I].
> >
> > More elaboration: "sing", "sink", "seen", "seek" all have virtually the
> > same vowel, which is not that of "sig", "sick", or "sin".
>
> They do for me, too, roughly speaking (slightly lower and backer, but
> definitely closer to [i] than [I]). But I got made fun of in college
> for that pronunciation, because everyone else used something closer to [I].
And so you should have been. :-)
Alan
Christian Weisgerber
> > Apparently, the velar nasal N can only occur after "lax"vowels (in
> > particular cannot occur after the vowels in the names of the vowels).
>
> It occurs after tense [i] as in "ring", where it sounds like
> the name of the letter "E".
What?!
> On the other hand, [N] doesn't occur after lax [I], the vowel in "rip".
In your dialect, "rip" and "ring" have different vowels?
Alan Munn
Harlan Messinger <h.remo...@gavelcade.com> wrote:
I don't think very high; you don't find it across morpheme boundaries
very much. Even the prefix in-, which assimilates other places of
articulation seems to preserve [n] before velars:
improbable
illogical
inconsistent [n] vs. ??[N]
and un- definitely doesn't do it:
unkind [n] vs. *[N]
(It might happen in "vainglorious" which for many speakers may not have
as many morphemes as we might think. )
Alan
Christian Weisgerber
> I'm not going to sit through another endless round of discussions on
> phonemic classification. The vowel in "sing" is the vowel in "seen",
> [i], not the one in "sin" or even "singe" or "ingrate", [I].
I challenge you to find a dictionary that agrees with this analysis.
Peter T. Daniels
wrote:
> On 6/1/2011 3:20 PM, Brian M. Scott wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
> > On Wed, 01 Jun 2011 13:47:04 -0400, Harlan Messinger
> > <news:94nc8q...@mid.individual.net> in sci.lang:
That is very definitely weird.
Nathan Sanders
> In article<is66c...@news6.newsguy.com>,
> Nathan Sanders<san...@alum.mit.edu> wrote:
>
>> On 6/1/11 3:37 PM, Harlan Messinger wrote:
>>> On 6/1/2011 3:34 PM, Harlan Messinger wrote:
>>>> On 6/1/2011 3:20 PM, Brian M. Scott wrote:
>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> My<ring> is definitely /rIN/.
>>>>
>>>> I'm not going to sit through another endless round of discussions on
>>>> phonemic classification.
>>
>> Yep, the phoneme choice here is largely irrelevant. Either /I/ or /i/
>> work equally well, since the contrast between them is neutralized before
>> /N/.
>
> Are you sure? For me, "sing" [sIN] is distinct from "seeing" [sijN].
"seeing" is composed of two morphemes "see" and "-ing", so the phonemic
representation should have two vowels, whereas "sin", "seen", and "sing"
should all have only one. Indeed, I pronounce "seeing" with two vowels
(and two syllables). If I force myself to make it monosyllabic, it's
homophonous with "sing" for me.
In order to get [I] in "sing", I have to speak slowly and concentrate on
the vowel (it's parallel to what I have to do to get [E] in the first
syllable of "entity", since I still have remnants of the pin/pen merger).
>> Barring other evidence (e.g., morphologically related words or
>> interaction with rules like Canadian Raising) or other theory-specific
>> considerations (e.g., concreteness in phonemic representations), there's
>> no reason to pick one over the other. In fact, if you're going for as
>> minimal a representation as possible, you'd choose something more
>> abstract, something that is not specified as either tense or lax.
>>
>> It's the same issue as choosing a phoneme for the flap in "matter" and
>> "spider" for most dialects. You can choose either /t/ or /d/ (or
>> something more abstract), with no difference in how the observable facts
>> are described.
>
> I know it's hard to tease out from a spelling pronunciation, but surely
> some flapped /t/ is pronounced as [t] whereas flapped /d/ never is.
Except for cases where there are morphologically related words showing
[t]/[d] (atom/atomic, lead/leader, etc.), I wouldn't expect a completely
illiterate speaker to reliably pronounce emphasized flaps as [t] or [d]
correctly according to the spelling.
Finding such speakers is very difficult, however.
>>>> The vowel in "sing" is the vowel in "seen",
>>>> [i], not the one in "sin" or even "singe" or "ingrate", [I].
>>>
>>> More elaboration: "sing", "sink", "seen", "seek" all have virtually the
>>> same vowel, which is not that of "sig", "sick", or "sin".
>>
>> They do for me, too, roughly speaking (slightly lower and backer, but
>> definitely closer to [i] than [I]). But I got made fun of in college
>> for that pronunciation, because everyone else used something closer to [I].
>
> And so you should have been. :-)
:-P
Peter T. Daniels
I didn't have time to check before, but Kenyon & Knott (1953) [the
American Jones/Gimson] know nothing of this "seeng." They have of
course the I/E merger before nasals (stem, men, length) -- they call
it "Southern I for E before nasals" -- and maybe this is an extension
of that.
But I met Harlan a few years ago, and there was nothing regional about
his speech.
Incidentally, regarding /n/ > /N/ in prefixes:
"When the letter n ends the syllable before a k or a g sound, it
usually represents the sound N if the next syllable is final and
wholly unaccented, as in congress, Concord [but not concord], where
the final syllable has an unmarked subordinate accent. In other
situations there is much wavering between n and N that has no bearing
on acceptability and is therefore often not shown in the vocabulary,"
Nathan Sanders
> I didn't have time to check before, but Kenyon& Knott (1953) [the
> American Jones/Gimson] know nothing of this "seeng." They have of
> course the I/E merger before nasals (stem, men, length) -- they call
> it "Southern I for E before nasals" -- and maybe this is an extension
> of that.
A higher vowel than [I] in "sing" (and indeed, for all front vowels
before velar nasals) is a trait of the English spoken by younger
southern Californians, which probably means it's not dependent on the
pin/pen merger.
pauljk
"Joe Fineman" <jo...@verizon.net> wrote in message news:utyc9n...@verizon.net...
> Nathan Sanders <san...@alum.mit.edu> writes:
>
>> On 6/1/11 3:37 PM, Harlan Messinger wrote:
>
>>> More elaboration: "sing", "sink", "seen", "seek" all have virtually
>>> the same vowel, which is not that of "sig", "sick", or "sin".
>>
>> They do for me, too, roughly speaking (slightly lower and backer,
>> but definitely closer to [i] than [I]). But I got made fun of in
>> college for that pronunciation, because everyone else used something
>> closer to [I].
>
> If I deliberately pronounce "sing" with the vowel of "seen", I sound
> as if I were making fun of someone with a Mexican accent.
You could always excuse yourself by saying you've just returned
from an extended trip to Australia. :-)
pjk
> --- Joe Fineman jo...@verizon.net
anal...@hotmail.com
wrote:
If we keep at it - the true underlying regularity will emerge. Now of
the two varieties of "short u" - only the "but" vartiety can occur
before [N] apparently. Two South Asian borrowings "lungi" (sarong)
and "mung" (the bean) have the true PIE short u in the original, I
don't know how Americans or Brits would say them.
anal...@hotmail.com
wrote:
>
> - Show quoted text -
correction:
The short-u form for the bean in Hindi seems to be a variant, the
proper form is "moong"
Jim Heckman
On 1-Jun-2011, "Brian M. Scott" <b.s...@csuohio.edu>
wrote in message <183v4uihvddf8.1...@40tude.net>:
> On Wed, 01 Jun 2011 13:47:04 -0400, Harlan Messinger
> <h.remo...@gavelcade.com> wrote in
> <news:94nc8q...@mid.individual.net> in sci.lang:
[...]
> > It also doesn't occur after lax [&], the vowel in "rap".
>
> Again, it certainly does in my English: sang, rang, hang,
> ... all have [æ].
I would say I have /æ/ in "sang", "rang", "hang", ... But it's a
distinct allophone: it starts noticeably higher than before other
nasals ("Sam", "ran", ...) -- though not as high as [E] -- and is
also strongly diphthongized by a high front off-glide: [sæjN],
[ræjN], [hæjN], ..., unlike the mid-center off-glide in (most?)
other positions. To my ears this high front off-glide is just as
prominent as the one in my "sane", "rain", ... vowel.
--
Jim Heckman
Peter T. Daniels
> On 6/1/11 10:53 PM, Peter T. Daniels wrote:
>
> > I didn't have time to check before, but Kenyon& Knott (1953) [the
> > American Jones/Gimson] know nothing of this "seeng." They have of
> > course the I/E merger before nasals (stem, men, length) -- they call
> > it "Southern I for E before nasals" -- and maybe this is an extension
> > of that.
>
> A higher vowel than [I] in "sing" (and indeed, for all front vowels
> before velar nasals) is a trait of the English spoken by younger
> southern Californians, which probably means it's not dependent on the
> pin/pen merger.
That also excludes Harlan!
Nathan Sanders
Southern Californian youth don't hold exclusive rights to this, or any
other, sound change.
If a sound change can arise once, it can just as easily arise again
elsewhere. Harlan may be from a dialect region that also has this (or a
similar) sound change. Or, it could just be a feature of his idiolect.
Dialect features do start off with individuals after all.
Peter T. Daniels
> On 6/2/11 7:39 AM, Peter T. Daniels wrote:
>
> > On Jun 1, 11:48 pm, Nathan Sanders<sand...@alum.mit.edu> wrote:
> >> On 6/1/11 10:53 PM, Peter T. Daniels wrote:
>
> >>> I didn't have time to check before, but Kenyon& Knott (1953) [the
> >>> American Jones/Gimson] know nothing of this "seeng." They have of
> >>> course the I/E merger before nasals (stem, men, length) -- they call
> >>> it "Southern I for E before nasals" -- and maybe this is an extension
> >>> of that.
>
> >> A higher vowel than [I] in "sing" (and indeed, for all front vowels
> >> before velar nasals) is a trait of the English spoken by younger
> >> southern Californians, which probably means it's not dependent on the
> >> pin/pen merger.
>
> > That also excludes Harlan!
>
> Southern Californian youth don't hold exclusive rights to this, or any
> other, sound change.
Then mentioning Southern California was not relevant in this case.
> If a sound change can arise once, it can just as easily arise again
> elsewhere. Harlan may be from a dialect region that also has this (or a
> similar) sound change. Or, it could just be a feature of his idiolect.
> Dialect features do start off with individuals after all.
If someone notices that Jimmy Breslin's speech is r-less, is it
helpful to mention that r-lessness is characteristic of London,
England?
Nathan Sanders
> On Jun 2, 11:02 am, Nathan Sanders<sand...@alum.mit.edu> wrote:
>> On 6/2/11 7:39 AM, Peter T. Daniels wrote:
>>
>>> On Jun 1, 11:48 pm, Nathan Sanders<sand...@alum.mit.edu> wrote:
>>>> On 6/1/11 10:53 PM, Peter T. Daniels wrote:
>>
>>>>> I didn't have time to check before, but Kenyon& Knott (1953) [the
>>>>> American Jones/Gimson] know nothing of this "seeng." They have of
>>>>> course the I/E merger before nasals (stem, men, length) -- they call
>>>>> it "Southern I for E before nasals" -- and maybe this is an extension
>>>>> of that.
>>
>>>> A higher vowel than [I] in "sing" (and indeed, for all front vowels
>>>> before velar nasals) is a trait of the English spoken by younger
>>>> southern Californians, which probably means it's not dependent on the
>>>> pin/pen merger.
>>
>>> That also excludes Harlan!
>>
>> Southern Californian youth don't hold exclusive rights to this, or any
>> other, sound change.
>
> Then mentioning Southern California was not relevant in this case.
Of course it was. Any dialect that has [siN] "sing" but not the pin/pen
merger is directly relevant to your suggestion that the former is an
extension of the latter.
Brian M. Scott
<am...@msu.edu> wrote in
<news:amunn-6E15B8....@news.eternal-september.org>
in sci.lang:
> In article <94ncba...@mid.individual.net>,
> Harlan Messinger <h.remo...@gavelcade.com> wrote:
[...]
>> I wonder what the incidence is of [N] in English speakers' pronunciation
>> of "vainglorious" or "Don Quixote".
> I don't think very high; you don't find it across morpheme
> boundaries very much. Even the prefix in-, which
> assimilates other places of articulation seems to
> preserve [n] before velars:
> improbable
> illogical
> inconsistent [n] vs. ??[N]
One of my brothers took a linguistics course many years ago
from a woman who absolutely insisted that *everyone* had [N]
when <in-> was followed by a velar stop. She apparently
wasn't interested in actually listening to him.
Brian
Peter T. Daniels
Where did you assert that your alleged Southern Californians do not
have the I/E merger?
Peter T. Daniels
> On Wed, 01 Jun 2011 18:24:04 -0400, Alan Munn
> <am...@msu.edu> wrote in
> <news:amunn-6E15B8....@news.eternal-september.org>
> in sci.lang:
>
> > Harlan Messinger <h.removet...@gavelcade.com> wrote:
>
> [...]
>
> >> I wonder what the incidence is of [N] in English speakers' pronunciation
> >> of "vainglorious" or "Don Quixote".
> > I don't think very high; you don't find it across morpheme
> > boundaries very much. Even the prefix in-, which
> > assimilates other places of articulation seems to
> > preserve [n] before velars:
> > improbable
> > illogical
> > inconsistent [n] vs. ??[N]
>
> One of my brothers took a linguistics course many years ago
> from a woman who absolutely insisted that *everyone* had [N]
> when <in-> was followed by a velar stop. She apparently
> wasn't interested in actually listening to him.
Did your brother point out that it occurs before non-stress (Concord)
but not before stress (concord)? See the quotation from Kenyon & Knott
provided earlier.
Nathan Sanders
You thought they have it?!?
Brian M. Scott
<san...@alum.mit.edu> wrote in
<news:is8qa...@news4.newsguy.com> in sci.lang:
> On 6/2/11 1:49 PM, Peter T. Daniels wrote:
[...]
>> Where did you assert that your alleged Southern
>> Californians do not have the I/E merger?
> You thought they have it?!?
Apparently some inland areas do, including Bakersfield.
(For me it's strongly associated with my junior high years
in Richmond, Endiana, where I first made the acquaintance of
that marvelous modern invention, the enk-pin.)
Brian
Nathan Sanders
> On Thu, 02 Jun 2011 16:03:13 -0400, Nathan Sanders
> <san...@alum.mit.edu> wrote in
> <news:is8qa...@news4.newsguy.com> in sci.lang:
>
>> On 6/2/11 1:49 PM, Peter T. Daniels wrote:
>
> [...]
>
>>> Where did you assert that your alleged Southern
>>> Californians do not have the I/E merger?
>
>> You thought they have it?!?
>
> Apparently some inland areas do, including Bakersfield.
Ah, there may be some pockets, but it's certainly not a general
characteristic of southern California as a whole.
> (For me it's strongly associated with my junior high years
> in Richmond, Endiana, where I first made the acquaintance of
> that marvelous modern invention, the enk-pin.)
Yes, southern Indiana definitely has it (my mom is from there).
Peter T. Daniels
Why would I have any opinion on the matter? You're supposed to be the
phonetics expert.
Nathan Sanders
As if that had ever mattered to you before!
Peter T. Daniels
You mean, when you make a generalization, it's ok, but when anyone
else does so, it's rather an opportunity for you to score points?
Nathan Sanders
If you ever want me to back up my claims with sources, you are free to ask.
Bart Mathias
na...@mips.inka.de (Christian Weisgerber) wrote:
> Harlan Messinger <h.remo...@gavelcade.com> wrote:
>
> > > Apparently, the velar nasal N can only occur after "lax"vowels (in
> > > particular cannot occur after the vowels in the names of the vowels).
> >
> > It occurs after tense [i] as in "ring", where it sounds like
> > the name of the letter "E".
>
> What?!
>
> > On the other hand, [N] doesn't occur after lax [I], the vowel in "rip".
>
> In your dialect, "rip" and "ring" have different vowels?
They likely do in all dialects, and the same goes for "reap" and "ring."
Since there is only one high front vowel before English [N] and no possible
minimal pair to distinguish an /i/ from /I/ in that position, there's
something a little fishy about assigning either value to it. We probably all
do it via "psychological reality," which was a no-no when I took undergrad
phonology (c. 1958?). I wonder why a few of us feel it is /i/ and many think
it's /I/ when it's most certainly neither.
--
Bart Mathias <mat...@hawaii.edu>
Peter T. Daniels
> On Wed, 1 Jun 2011 20:34:51 +0000 (UTC)
>
> na...@mips.inka.de (Christian Weisgerber) wrote:
>
> > > > Apparently, the velar nasal N can only occur after "lax"vowels (in
> > > > particular cannot occur after the vowels in the names of the vowels).
>
> > > It occurs after tense [i] as in "ring", where it sounds like
> > > the name of the letter "E".
>
> > What?!
>
> > > On the other hand, [N] doesn't occur after lax [I], the vowel in "rip".
>
> > In your dialect, "rip" and "ring" have different vowels?
>
> They likely do in all dialects, and the same goes for "reap" and "ring."
>
> Since there is only one high front vowel before English [N] and no possible
> minimal pair to distinguish an /i/ from /I/ in that position, there's
> something a little fishy about assigning either value to it. We probably all
> do it via "psychological reality," which was a no-no when I took undergrad
> phonology (c. 1958?). I wonder why a few of us feel it is /i/ and many think
> it's /I/ when it's most certainly neither.
grip grim limp simmer
grit grin lint dinner
rick ring linger Winger
All different??
Bart Mathias
"Peter T. Daniels" <gram...@verizon.net> wrote:
> On Jun 3, 9:26 pm, Bart Mathias <math...@hawaii.edu> wrote:
> > [...
> >
> > Since there is only one high front vowel before English [N] and no possible
> > minimal pair to distinguish an /i/ from /I/ in that position, there's
> > something a little fishy about assigning either value to it. We probably all
> > do it via "psychological reality," which was a no-no when I took undergrad
> > phonology (c. 1958?). I wonder why a few of us feel it is /i/ and many think
> > it's /I/ when it's most certainly neither.
>
> grip grim limp simmer
> grit grin lint dinner
> rick ring linger Winger
>
> All different??
I would imagine that if one measured closely enough (over enough samples to
allow ruling out the little variations the technical term for which is eluding
me at the moment), they would be. "Grip" and "grim" the same, and maybe "limp"
and "simmer," but there would be different on-glides. The first row would differ
from the second row due to different off-glides. But these would all be
virtually infinitessimal differences.
My feeling (I wish I had done spectrograms when I had the chance a few years
back) is that the third row has two different vowels even though the following
consonants have the same points of articulation, and presumably the same glide
tendency. However, had you made row three into "reek ring linger Winger," I
would feel less strongly about the issue.
--
Bart Mathias <mat...@hawaii.edu>
Peter T. Daniels
> On Fri, 3 Jun 2011 18:48:41 -0700 (PDT)
> "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...@verizon.net> wrote:
>
> > On Jun 3, 9:26 pm, Bart Mathias <math...@hawaii.edu> wrote:
> > > [...
>
> > > Since there is only one high front vowel before English [N] and no possible
> > > minimal pair to distinguish an /i/ from /I/ in that position, there's
> > > something a little fishy about assigning either value to it. We probably all
> > > do it via "psychological reality," which was a no-no when I took undergrad
> > > phonology (c. 1958?). I wonder why a few of us feel it is /i/ and many think
> > > it's /I/ when it's most certainly neither.
>
> > grip grim limp simmer
> > grit grin lint dinner
> > rick ring linger Winger
>
> > All different??
>
> I would imagine that if one measured closely enough (over enough samples to
> allow ruling out the little variations the technical term for which is eluding
> me at the moment), they would be. "Grip" and "grim" the same, and maybe "limp"
> and "simmer," but there would be different on-glides. The first row would differ
> from the second row due to different off-glides. But these would all be
> virtually infinitessimal differences.
I.e., they're all the same phoneme, and they're "the same," not
"different." BTW by 1970, "psychological reality," as in Sapir, was
exactly our concern. Presumably you were following Harris, for which
the _only_ criterion was "same" vs. "different."
> My feeling (I wish I had done spectrograms when I had the chance a few years
> back) is that the third row has two different vowels even though the following
> consonants have the same points of articulation, and presumably the same glide
> tendency. However, had you made row three into "reek ring linger Winger," I
> would feel less strongly about the issue.
It's perfectly clear that rick and reek are totally different, and
that reek is different from the other three in that row.
Perhaps I should have also included
rib
rid
rig
Bart Mathias
"Peter T. Daniels" <gram...@verizon.net> wrote:
> On Jun 4, 10:09 pm, Bart Mathias <math...@hawaii.edu> wrote:
> > On Fri, 3 Jun 2011 18:48:41 -0700 (PDT)
> > "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...@verizon.net> wrote:
> >
> > > [...]
> > > rick ring linger Winger
> >
> > > All different??
> >
> > I would imagine that if one measured closely enough (over enough samples to
> > allow ruling out the little variations the technical term for which is eluding
> > me at the moment), they would be. "Grip" and "grim" the same, and maybe "limp"
> > and "simmer," but there would be different on-glides. The first row would differ
> > from the second row due to different off-glides. But these would all be
> > virtually infinitessimal differences.
>
> I.e., they're all the same phoneme, and they're "the same," not
> "different." BTW by 1970, "psychological reality," as in Sapir, was
> exactly our concern. Presumably you were following Harris, for which
> the _only_ criterion was "same" vs. "different."
Obviously I was not talking about whether they were the same *phoneme* or not.
> > [...]
>
> It's perfectly clear that rick and reek are totally different, and
> that reek is different from the other three in that row.
Up to the comma, I agree. But I wonder if you could explain what makes it clear
that [the vowel or the phoneme of] "reek" is different from that of the other
three. I agree that it would be nice; /riN/ looks better than /riyN/ (although
/riN/ might look better than /rIN/ if one uses that phonemicization), especially
if there's only going to be one or the other.
But I'd hate to have to force myself to say [rIN] when speaking English. (I
*can* say it, and might be able to learn a foreign language that had an [IN] /
[iN] contrast.)
> Perhaps I should have also included
>
> rib
> rid
> rig
Why?
--
Bart Mathias <mat...@hawaii.edu>
Peter T. Daniels
Because I would have to force myself to say /riyN/, and it wouldn't
sound like an English word.
> But I'd hate to have to force myself to say [rIN] when speaking English. (I
> *can* say it, and might be able to learn a foreign language that had an [IN] /
> [iN] contrast.)
>
> > Perhaps I should have also included
>
> > rib
> > rid
> > rig
>
> Why?
Because they add to the stock of minimal pairs.
So, where did you learn phonology in 1958?
Nathan Sanders
<015a696c-dbee-45a0...@w36g2000vbi.googlegroups.com>,
"anal...@hotmail.com" <anal...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> Now of the two varieties of "short u" -
There aren't "two varieties" of "short u" in English. There isn't
even one.
For general American English, there is:
* an unrounded mid-central vowel, the vowel in "hut", "blood", "son",
"one", "touch", etc.
* a near-high, near-back rounded vowel (though mid-centralized and/or
unrounded for many speakers), the vowel in "put", "soot", "wolf",
"bosom" (first syllable), "could", etc.
* a high back rounded vowel (though fronted and/or unrounded for many
speakers), the vowel in "flu", "soon", "tomb", "move", "group", etc.
Only one of these is pronounced [u] (and that one is typically longer
than the other two), and as you can see in the examples above, none of
them are consistently spelled with <u>.
Nathan
--
Department of Linguistics
Swarthmore College
Bart Mathias
"Peter T. Daniels" <gram...@verizon.net> wrote:
> On Jun 5, 11:27 pm, Bart Mathias <math...@hawaii.edu> wrote:
> > [...]
> > ... I wonder if you could explain what makes it clear
> > that [the vowel or the phoneme of] "reek" is different from that of
["ring," etc.] ...
>
> Because I would have to force myself to say /riyN/, and it wouldn't
> sound like an English word.
That's true in my case too if I force myself to say [ri(:)N], but what I
actually say for "ring," probably something somewhere between [rIN] and [riN],
feels to me like [riyN], the old psychological reality thing.
I failed to consider that when I wrote, truly:
> > But I'd hate to have to force myself to say [rIN] when speaking English. ...
> > > Perhaps I should have also included
> >
> > > rib
> > > rid
> > > rig
> >
> > Why?
>
> Because they add to the stock of minimal pairs.
I see! /b/, /d/, and /g/ must be different phonemes!
> So, where did you learn phonology in 1958?
Berkeley.
--
Bart Mathias <mat...@hawaii.edu>
Peter T. Daniels
And you think the preceding vowel is pronounced in three further
different ways!
> > So, where did you learn phonology in 1958?
>
> Berkeley.
I had a vague memory of that -- along with Bill Bright? But before
Alan Kaye. With Mary Haas and Murray Emeneau? (I heard each of them
speak once, the former at Northwestern my first year in Chicago, the
latter at the Berkeley AOS meeting in 1991.)
Bart Mathias
"Peter T. Daniels" <gram...@verizon.net> wrote:
> On Jun 7, 1:30 am, Bart Mathias <math...@hawaii.edu> wrote:
> > On Mon, 6 Jun 2011 04:26:34 -0700 (PDT)
> > "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...@verizon.net> wrote:
> >
> >[...]
> > > > > Perhaps I should have also included
> >
> > > > > rib
> > > > > rid
> > > > > rig
> >
> > > > Why?
> >
> > > Because they add to the stock of minimal pairs.
> >
> > I see! /b/, /d/, and /g/ must be different phonemes!
>
> And you think the preceding vowel is pronounced in three further
> different ways!
Of course! It's that difference that distinguishes "rip," "writ," and "rick"
in cases where the final consonant isn't released. The same phoneme often has
different pronunciations in different environments.
> > > So, where did you learn phonology in 1958?
> >
> > Berkeley.
>
> I had a vague memory of that -- along with Bill Bright? But before
> Alan Kaye. With Mary Haas and Murray Emeneau? (I heard each of them
> speak once, the former at Northwestern my first year in Chicago, the
> latter at the Berkeley AOS meeting in 1991.)
Kaye doesn't [rIN] a bell. Bright, Haas, and Emeneau were big deals long
before I ever got to Berkeley.
--
Bart Mathias <mat...@hawaii.edu>
Peter T. Daniels
> On Tue, 7 Jun 2011 04:47:33 -0700 (PDT)
> "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...@verizon.net> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
> > On Jun 7, 1:30 am, Bart Mathias <math...@hawaii.edu> wrote:
> > > On Mon, 6 Jun 2011 04:26:34 -0700 (PDT)
> > > "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...@verizon.net> wrote:
>
> > >[...]
> > > > > > Perhaps I should have also included
>
> > > > > > rib
> > > > > > rid
> > > > > > rig
>
> > > > > Why?
>
> > > > Because they add to the stock of minimal pairs.
>
> > > I see! /b/, /d/, and /g/ must be different phonemes!
>
> > And you think the preceding vowel is pronounced in three further
> > different ways!
>
> Of course! It's that difference that distinguishes "rip," "writ," and "rick"
> in cases where the final consonant isn't released. The same phoneme often has
> different pronunciations in different environments.
One wouldn't usually think of the difference that distinguishes the
three words with unreleaseds as parts of the vowel, but as the
consonant phoneme itself!
> > > > So, where did you learn phonology in 1958?
>
> > > Berkeley.
>
> > I had a vague memory of that -- along with Bill Bright? But before
> > Alan Kaye. With Mary Haas and Murray Emeneau? (I heard each of them
> > speak once, the former at Northwestern my first year in Chicago, the
> > latter at the Berkeley AOS meeting in 1991.)
>
> Kaye doesn't [rIN] a bell. Bright, Haas, and Emeneau were big deals long
> before I ever got to Berkeley.
Bill's Ph.D. was 1955, so you just missed him; he taught at Berkeley
for one year, 58-59, and then moved to UCLA.
Alan's was 1971, and he was hired right away at Fullerton.
Nathan Sanders
<de19d8de-e7aa-4403...@hl1g2000vbb.googlegroups.com>,
"Peter T. Daniels" <gram...@verizon.net> wrote:
> On Jun 7, 10:01 pm, Bart Mathias <math...@hawaii.edu> wrote:
> > On Tue, 7 Jun 2011 04:47:33 -0700 (PDT)
> > "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...@verizon.net> wrote:
> > > On Jun 7, 1:30 am, Bart Mathias <math...@hawaii.edu> wrote:
> > > > On Mon, 6 Jun 2011 04:26:34 -0700 (PDT)
> > > > "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...@verizon.net> wrote:
> >
> > > > > > > Perhaps I should have also included
> >
> > > > > > > rib
> > > > > > > rid
> > > > > > > rig
> >
> > > > > > Why?
> >
> > > > > Because they add to the stock of minimal pairs.
> >
> > > > I see! /b/, /d/, and /g/ must be different phonemes!
> >
> > > And you think the preceding vowel is pronounced in three further
> > > different ways!
Any pronunciation of "rib" with the vowels of "rid" or "rig" would
sound odd, if not outright inhuman. The lack of (proper)
coarticulatory effects is one major reason why synthetic speech often
sounds so robotic.
> > Of course! It's that difference that distinguishes "rip," "writ," and
> > "rick"
> > in cases where the final consonant isn't released. The same phoneme often
> > has
> > different pronunciations in different environments.
>
> One wouldn't usually think of the difference that distinguishes the
> three words with unreleaseds as parts of the vowel, but as the
> consonant phoneme itself!
Phonemically, sure. But in the *pronunciation*, that difference is
indeed realized in the vowel, so yes, in the triplets rib/rid/rig and
rip/writ/rick, "the preceding vowel is pronounced in three further
different ways" (and as Bart notes, that difference in vowel
pronunciation is the same across the two sets of triplets).
anal...@hotmail.com
> In article
> <de19d8de-e7aa-4403-818a-12b6755e0...@hl1g2000vbb.googlegroups.com>,
> "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...@verizon.net> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
> > On Jun 7, 10:01 pm, Bart Mathias <math...@hawaii.edu> wrote:
> > > On Tue, 7 Jun 2011 04:47:33 -0700 (PDT)
> > > "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...@verizon.net> wrote:
> > > > On Jun 7, 1:30 am, Bart Mathias <math...@hawaii.edu> wrote:
> > > > > On Mon, 6 Jun 2011 04:26:34 -0700 (PDT)
> > > > > "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...@verizon.net> wrote:
>
> > > > > > > > Perhaps I should have also included
>
> > > > > > > > rib
> > > > > > > > rid
> > > > > > > > rig
>
> > > > > > > Why?
>
> > > > > > Because they add to the stock of minimal pairs.
>
> > > > > I see! /b/, /d/, and /g/ must be different phonemes!
>
> > > > And you think the preceding vowel is pronounced in three further
> > > > different ways!
>
> Any pronunciation of "rib" with the vowels of "rid" or "rig" would
> sound odd, if not outright inhuman. The lack of (proper)
> coarticulatory effects is one major reason why synthetic speech often
> sounds so robotic.
>
"rib", "rig" and "rid" have consistently different vowels?
What utter, unadulterated crap - either that - or, the number of
vowels in English is at least in the hundreds, if not thousands
(considering permutations and combinations of preceding/succedding
vowels/consonants).
> > > Of course! It's that difference that distinguishes "rip," "writ," and
> > > "rick"
> > > in cases where the final consonant isn't released. The same phoneme often
> > > has
> > > different pronunciations in different environments.
>
> > One wouldn't usually think of the difference that distinguishes the
> > three words with unreleaseds as parts of the vowel, but as the
> > consonant phoneme itself!
>
> Phonemically, sure. But in the *pronunciation*, that difference is
> indeed realized in the vowel, so yes, in the triplets rib/rid/rig and
> rip/writ/rick, "the preceding vowel is pronounced in three further
> different ways" (and as Bart notes, that difference in vowel
> pronunciation is the same across the two sets of triplets).
>
> Nathan
>
> --
> Department of Linguistics
> Swarthmore Collegehttp://sanders.phonologist.org/- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -
Peter T. Daniels
wrote:
Phonetically, of course.
Phonemically, of course not.
The phonetic differences have no significance (literally) in the
language.
The artificiality of synthetic speech that Nathan mentioned doesn't
interfere with comprehension.
> > > > Of course! It's that difference that distinguishes "rip," "writ," and
> > > > "rick"
> > > > in cases where the final consonant isn't released. The same phoneme often
> > > > has
> > > > different pronunciations in different environments.
>
> > > One wouldn't usually think of the difference that distinguishes the
> > > three words with unreleaseds as parts of the vowel, but as the
> > > consonant phoneme itself!
>
> > Phonemically, sure. But in the *pronunciation*, that difference is
> > indeed realized in the vowel, so yes, in the triplets rib/rid/rig and
> > rip/writ/rick, "the preceding vowel is pronounced in three further
> > different ways" (and as Bart notes, that difference in vowel
> > pronunciation is the same across the two sets of triplets).
Not really.
Nathan Sanders
<40759a2b-df97-40d0...@u19g2000vbi.googlegroups.com>,
"anal...@hotmail.com" <anal...@hotmail.com> wrote:
Of course they do. The second half of the vowel pronunciation in each
word has very different acoustic properties:
for "rib", all formants slope downward
for "rid", F1 and F2 slope downward, F3 slopes upward
for "rig", F1 and F3 slope downward, F2 slopes upward until
it merges with F3
This is basic acoustic phonetics. Look up "formant transitions".
When we pronounce "rib", our mouths are already beginning to move into
a [b] shape partway through the vowel. This gradual transition from
[I] to [b] results in a dynamic network of resonating cavities, and
thus, dynamic acoustics.
It's physically impossible to pronounce a pure [I] and then
instantaneously have your open mouth magically be in a closed position
for [b]. Our lips don't teleport; they have to move through space
over a non-zero amount of time.
We could of course pronounce [I], leave our mouths open until our
vocal cords stop vibrating, and during the consequent period of
silence, close our mouth, and restart vocal cord vibration to make a
[b]. If you do that, you sound like a robot.
> What utter, unadulterated crap - either that - or, the number of
> vowels in English is at least in the hundreds, if not thousands
> (considering permutations and combinations of preceding/succedding
> vowels/consonants).
You are confusing abstract phonemic analysis (theory) with measurable
physical pronunciation (reality). The question at hand is whether
"the preceding vowel is *pronounced* in three further different ways"
[emphasis mine], and this is indeed physically true. While all three
words do have the same vowel *phoneme* in theory, they have three
different vowel *pronunciations* in reality.
Nathan Sanders
<85be28f1-5e58-4798...@d28g2000yqf.googlegroups.com>,
"Peter T. Daniels" <gram...@verizon.net> wrote:
> On Jun 8, 9:13 pm, "analys...@hotmail.com" <analys...@hotmail.com>
> wrote:
> > On Jun 8, 5:38 pm, Nathan Sanders <sand...@alum.mit.edu> wrote:
> >
> > > Any pronunciation of "rib" with the vowels of "rid" or "rig" would
> > > sound odd, if not outright inhuman. The lack of (proper)
> > > coarticulatory effects is one major reason why synthetic speech often
> > > sounds so robotic.
> >
> > "rib", "rig" and "rid" have consistently different vowels?
> >
> > What utter, unadulterated crap - either that - or, the number of
> > vowels in English is at least in the hundreds, if not thousands
> > (considering permutations and combinations of preceding/succedding
> > vowels/consonants).
>
> Phonetically, of course.
>
> Phonemically, of course not.
>
> The phonetic differences have no significance (literally) in the
> language.
They should have no significance to interpretation, but they certainly
have sociolinguistic significance. If you hear someone speak with
incorrect formant transitions, you aren't going to react to them as if
they were a native speaker.
> The artificiality of synthetic speech that Nathan mentioned doesn't
> interfere with comprehension.
Except of course, when it does.
> > > > > Of course! It's that difference that distinguishes "rip," "writ," and
> > > > > "rick"
> > > > > in cases where the final consonant isn't released. The same phoneme
> > > > > often
> > > > > has
> > > > > different pronunciations in different environments.
> >
> > > > One wouldn't usually think of the difference that distinguishes the
> > > > three words with unreleaseds as parts of the vowel, but as the
> > > > consonant phoneme itself!
> >
> > > Phonemically, sure. But in the *pronunciation*, that difference is
> > > indeed realized in the vowel, so yes, in the triplets rib/rid/rig and
> > > rip/writ/rick, "the preceding vowel is pronounced in three further
> > > different ways" (and as Bart notes, that difference in vowel
> > > pronunciation is the same across the two sets of triplets).
>
> Not really.
Yes really. The difference in vowel pronunciation between "rib" and
"rid" is the same as between "rick" and "writ".
If you thought Bart mean something else, you misunderstood him.
Peter T. Daniels
> In article
> <85be28f1-5e58-4798-b30e-3b4f5656e...@d28g2000yqf.googlegroups.com>,
> "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...@verizon.net> wrote:
> > On Jun 8, 9:13 pm, "analys...@hotmail.com" <analys...@hotmail.com>
> > wrote:
> > > On Jun 8, 5:38 pm, Nathan Sanders <sand...@alum.mit.edu> wrote:
> > > > Any pronunciation of "rib" with the vowels of "rid" or "rig" would
> > > > sound odd, if not outright inhuman. The lack of (proper)
> > > > coarticulatory effects is one major reason why synthetic speech often
> > > > sounds so robotic.
>
> > > "rib", "rig" and "rid" have consistently different vowels?
>
> > > What utter, unadulterated crap - either that - or, the number of
> > > vowels in English is at least in the hundreds, if not thousands
> > > (considering permutations and combinations of preceding/succedding
> > > vowels/consonants).
>
> > Phonetically, of course.
>
> > Phonemically, of course not.
>
> > The phonetic differences have no significance (literally) in the
> > language.
>
> They should have no significance to interpretation, but they certainly
> have sociolinguistic significance. If you hear someone speak with
> incorrect formant transitions, you aren't going to react to them as if
> they were a native speaker.
What do you mean by "incorrect"? If they were formant transitions
appropriate to some other consonant, then they weren't the intended
consonant.
What does "significance (literally)" mean to you? Why did I include
"(literally)"?
> > The artificiality of synthetic speech that Nathan mentioned doesn't
> > interfere with comprehension.
>
> Except of course, when it does.
And when would that be?
> > > > > > Of course! It's that difference that distinguishes "rip," "writ," and
> > > > > > "rick"
> > > > > > in cases where the final consonant isn't released. The same phoneme
> > > > > > often
> > > > > > has
> > > > > > different pronunciations in different environments.
>
> > > > > One wouldn't usually think of the difference that distinguishes the
> > > > > three words with unreleaseds as parts of the vowel, but as the
> > > > > consonant phoneme itself!
>
> > > > Phonemically, sure. But in the *pronunciation*, that difference is
> > > > indeed realized in the vowel, so yes, in the triplets rib/rid/rig and
> > > > rip/writ/rick, "the preceding vowel is pronounced in three further
> > > > different ways" (and as Bart notes, that difference in vowel
> > > > pronunciation is the same across the two sets of triplets).
>
> > Not really.
>
> Yes really. The difference in vowel pronunciation between "rib" and
> "rid" is the same as between "rick" and "writ".
>
> If you thought Bart mean something else, you misunderstood him.
Suddenly _you're_ the expert on what other people meant?
Peter T. Daniels
> You are confusing abstract phonemic analysis (theory) with measurable
> physical pronunciation (reality). The question at hand is whether
> "the preceding vowel is *pronounced* in three further different ways"
> [emphasis mine], and this is indeed physically true. While all three
> words do have the same vowel *phoneme* in theory, they have three
> different vowel *pronunciations* in reality.
And _that_ is why phonetics isn't considered part of linguistics in
Britain.
_Of course_ phonemes differ "in reality."
The "theory" of phonemics is based in the _reality_ of the "same/
different" judgment of the 7+ billion native speakers on this planet.
Nathan Sanders
<efe7437e-4e24-4057...@ct4g2000vbb.googlegroups.com>,
"Peter T. Daniels" <gram...@verizon.net> wrote:
It's obvious what I meant.
> If they were formant transitions
> appropriate to some other consonant, then they weren't the intended
> consonant.
Not if it wasn't intended.
> What does "significance (literally)" mean to you? Why did I include
> "(literally)"?
Presumably something weird.
> > > The artificiality of synthetic speech that Nathan mentioned doesn't
> > > interfere with comprehension.
> >
> > Except of course, when it does.
>
> And when would that be?
When it does.
> > > > > > > Of course! It's that difference that distinguishes "rip," "writ,"
> > > > > > > and
> > > > > > > "rick"
> > > > > > > in cases where the final consonant isn't released. The same
> > > > > > > phoneme
> > > > > > > often
> > > > > > > has
> > > > > > > different pronunciations in different environments.
> >
> > > > > > One wouldn't usually think of the difference that distinguishes the
> > > > > > three words with unreleaseds as parts of the vowel, but as the
> > > > > > consonant phoneme itself!
> >
> > > > > Phonemically, sure. But in the *pronunciation*, that difference is
> > > > > indeed realized in the vowel, so yes, in the triplets rib/rid/rig and
> > > > > rip/writ/rick, "the preceding vowel is pronounced in three further
> > > > > different ways" (and as Bart notes, that difference in vowel
> > > > > pronunciation is the same across the two sets of triplets).
> >
> > > Not really.
> >
> > Yes really. The difference in vowel pronunciation between "rib" and
> > "rid" is the same as between "rick" and "writ".
> >
> > If you thought Bart mean something else, you misunderstood him.
>
> Suddenly _you're_ the expert on what other people meant?
Yes.
Nathan Sanders
<13c6da00-9f5a-4424...@r2g2000vbj.googlegroups.com>,
"Peter T. Daniels" <gram...@verizon.net> wrote:
> On Jun 8, 11:11 pm, Nathan Sanders <sand...@alum.mit.edu> wrote:
>
> > You are confusing abstract phonemic analysis (theory) with measurable
> > physical pronunciation (reality). The question at hand is whether
> > "the preceding vowel is *pronounced* in three further different ways"
> > [emphasis mine], and this is indeed physically true. While all three
> > words do have the same vowel *phoneme* in theory, they have three
> > different vowel *pronunciations* in reality.
>
> And _that_ is why phonetics isn't considered part of linguistics in
> Britain.
Except, of course, when it is:
http://www.abdn.ac.uk/langling/whatis.shtml
http://www.ling.cam.ac.uk/phonetics/
http://www.sllf.qmul.ac.uk/linguistics/research/index.html
> _Of course_ phonemes differ "in reality."
Except, of course, when they don't, a major point made in this thread.
> The "theory" of phonemics is based in the _reality_ of the "same/
> different" judgment of the 7+ billion native speakers on this planet.
The reality is the speaker judgments. Phonemic theory is one possible
theoretical explanation for the reality, but certainly not the only
one.
anal...@hotmail.com
Just as you can't step into a river twice, a human can never utter the
same vowel sound twice. Now if the "i" of "dig" differs from that of
"did" - is the systematic difference more than the natural variation
in different utterances of one of the two words?
What possible use is it speak of this difference, if it exists? If it
is important (read my lips - it is not) , then we need terminology
like "g colored i" etc. until there is a named vowel corresponding to
every vowel in every word in the language.
yangg
>
> Suddenly _you're_ the expert on what other people meant?-
***
Much in the same way as you are the expert on what other people did
not say nor mean.
A.
Nathan Sanders
<14dde0cf-6d35-4acc...@w36g2000vbi.googlegroups.com>,
"anal...@hotmail.com" <anal...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> Just as you can't step into a river twice, a human can never utter the
> same vowel sound twice. Now if the "i" of "dig" differs from that of
> "did" - is the systematic difference more than the natural variation
> in different utterances of one of the two words?
Absolutely. This isn't minor statistical noise. This is a
consistent, regular pattern due to how the physical universe operates:
you simply cannot pronounce [ib] by teleporting your mouth closed when
you want to switch from [i] to [b]. The pieces of your mouth must
move in paths, and that is precisely what causes formant transitions.
> What possible use is it speak of this difference, if it exists?
The use of formant transitions is information about the place of
articulation of an adjacent consonant. In fact, in some cases (e.g.,
an unreleased voiceless stop, as Bart already pointed out), formant
transitions could be the *only* acoustic correlate to the consonant's
place of articulation. They are certainly almost always the most
prominent acoustic correlate.
The use of speaking about formant transitions is the same as the use
of speaking about any aspect of linguistics (or of any academic field
for that matter): describing the object of study.
Knowing about formant transitions is also very useful for a variety of
applied areas, such as speech recognition and speech synthesis.
> If it is important (read my lips - it is not) ,
If you think it's not important to know the place of articulation of a
consonant, then your lips are correct.
> then we need terminology
> like "g colored i" etc. until there is a named vowel corresponding to
> every vowel in every word in the language.
Why? Just because you are unfamiliar with the existing terminology
doesn't mean new terminology needs to be created to accommodate your
ignorance.
Adam Funk
> "Peter T. Daniels" <gram...@verizon.net> wrote:
>> And _that_ is why phonetics isn't considered part of linguistics in
>> Britain.
>
> Except, of course, when it is:
>
> http://www.abdn.ac.uk/langling/whatis.shtml
> http://www.ling.cam.ac.uk/phonetics/
> http://www.sllf.qmul.ac.uk/linguistics/research/index.html
It seems to vary, though. Oxford has a "Faculty of Linguistics,
Philology & Phonetics" [missing comma!], which seems to think of the
three as closely related fields.
http://www.ling-phil.ox.ac.uk/prospective
>> The "theory" of phonemics is based in the _reality_ of the "same/
>> different" judgment of the 7+ billion native speakers on this planet.
>
> The reality is the speaker judgments. Phonemic theory is one possible
> theoretical explanation for the reality, but certainly not the only
> one.
I'm curious: how can a theory explain those judgments without
postulating some class of things by another name that happen to have
most of the characteristics of phonemes?
--
Do you know what they do to book thieves up at Santa Rita?
http://www.shigabooks.com/indeces/bookhunter.html
Nathan Sanders
Adam Funk <a24...@ducksburg.com> wrote:
> On 2011-06-09, Nathan Sanders wrote:
>
> > "Peter T. Daniels" <gram...@verizon.net> wrote:
>
> >> And _that_ is why phonetics isn't considered part of linguistics in
> >> Britain.
> >
> > Except, of course, when it is:
> >
> > http://www.abdn.ac.uk/langling/whatis.shtml
> > http://www.ling.cam.ac.uk/phonetics/
> > http://www.sllf.qmul.ac.uk/linguistics/research/index.html
>
> It seems to vary, though.
Right. It similar to how some math departments include statistics
implicitly, and others include it as an explicitly distinct part of a
joint program. (See also: chemistry and biochemisty, physics and
astronomy, anthropology and archaeology, etc.)
How departments get created and named is often due as much to history
and institutional politics as it is to academic definitions. MIT has
a "Department of Linguistics and Philosophy", Williams College has a
"Department of German and Russian", and the strangest one I found, the
US Air Force Academy has a "Department of Economics and Geosciences"!
This is particularly true for linguistics, because it's a relatively
younger field, so academic departments devoted to it (where such
departments even exist) have generally branched off from existing
departments, and did so in very different ways at different
institutions.
> Oxford has a "Faculty of Linguistics,
> Philology & Phonetics" [missing comma!],
Ha!
> >> The "theory" of phonemics is based in the _reality_ of the "same/
> >> different" judgment of the 7+ billion native speakers on this planet.
> >
> > The reality is the speaker judgments. Phonemic theory is one possible
> > theoretical explanation for the reality, but certainly not the only
> > one.
>
> I'm curious: how can a theory explain those judgments without
> postulating some class of things by another name that happen to have
> most of the characteristics of phonemes?
Rather than having phonemes be atomic units, they could instead be
emergent properties of something more basic, as is done with neural
networks.
The data from speakers' "same/different" judgments aren't as nearly as
clean as (older) linguists would generally have you believe.
Adam Funk
> Adam Funk <a24...@ducksburg.com> wrote:
[phonetics is/isn't part of linguistics]
>> It seems to vary, though.
>
> Right. It similar to how some math departments include statistics
> implicitly, and others include it as an explicitly distinct part of a
> joint program. (See also: chemistry and biochemisty, physics and
> astronomy, anthropology and archaeology, etc.)
Good analogies.
> How departments get created and named is often due as much to history
> and institutional politics as it is to academic definitions. MIT has
> a "Department of Linguistics and Philosophy", Williams College has a
> "Department of German and Russian", and the strangest one I found, the
> US Air Force Academy has a "Department of Economics and Geosciences"!
Of course, Russian isn't considered part of German. :-P I suppose
there's a cynical explanation involving the military-industrial
complex for the "Economics and Geosciences" link.
> This is particularly true for linguistics, because it's a relatively
> younger field, so academic departments devoted to it (where such
> departments even exist) have generally branched off from existing
> departments, and did so in very different ways at different
> institutions.
>
>> Oxford has a "Faculty of Linguistics,
>> Philology & Phonetics" [missing comma!],
>
> Ha!
Of course, Peter can cite that as evidence of American copy-editing
superiority. Chicago über Alles!
--
The three-martini lunch is the epitome of American efficiency.
Where else can you get an earful, a bellyful and a snootful at
the same time? [Gerald Ford, 1978]
Alan Munn
Nathan Sanders <san...@alum.mit.edu> wrote:
> In article <iq79c8x...@news.ducksburg.com>,
> Adam Funk <a24...@ducksburg.com> wrote:
>
> > On 2011-06-09, Nathan Sanders wrote:
> >
> > > "Peter T. Daniels" <gram...@verizon.net> wrote:
> >
> > >> And _that_ is why phonetics isn't considered part of linguistics in
> > >> Britain.
> > >
> > > Except, of course, when it is:
> > >
> > > http://www.abdn.ac.uk/langling/whatis.shtml
> > > http://www.ling.cam.ac.uk/phonetics/
> > > http://www.sllf.qmul.ac.uk/linguistics/research/index.html
> >
> > It seems to vary, though.
>
> Right. It similar to how some math departments include statistics
> implicitly, and others include it as an explicitly distinct part of a
> joint program. (See also: chemistry and biochemisty, physics and
> astronomy, anthropology and archaeology, etc.)
>
> How departments get created and named is often due as much to history
> and institutional politics as it is to academic definitions. MIT has
> a "Department of Linguistics and Philosophy", Williams College has a
> "Department of German and Russian", and the strangest one I found, the
> US Air Force Academy has a "Department of Economics and Geosciences"!
We're the Department of Linguistics and [-Romance] languages.
(Although that's not the formal name.)
Alan
anal...@hotmail.com
Still, doesn't make a hell of a lot of sense.
OK - in isolation, the [I] of "kit","kick" and "kip" gets modified
differently by the final unreleased stop. How about "kickback",
"kicked","kickass" etc. and also sentences in which the stop is
followed by all kinds of other sounds? Just where do you draw the
line as to the "different" varieties of [I] caused by succeeding (or,
for that matter, preceding) sounds?
Nathan Sanders
<e5778777-34a4-4d6d...@dq9g2000vbb.googlegroups.com>,
"anal...@hotmail.com" <anal...@hotmail.com> wrote:
[snip discussion of formant transitions]
> Still, doesn't make a hell of a lot of sense.
Which part doesn't make sense?
(1) differently shaped chambers have different resonance
(2) vowel acoustics are due to the resonance of the mouth
(3) it is physically impossible for human beings in this universe to
pronounce a vowel immediately followed by a stop without
transitionally changing the shape of their mouths
> OK - in isolation, the [I] of "kit","kick" and "kip" gets modified
> differently by the final unreleased stop. How about "kickback",
> "kicked","kickass" etc. and also sentences in which the stop is
> followed by all kinds of other sounds?
Yes, yes, yes, and yes. If you have a vowel immediately followed by a
stop, with no silence in between, you will see formant transitions,
because the human mouth cannot physically go from pronouncing a vowel
to pronouncing a stop unless the mouth changes shape over time. We
simply cannot do it instantaneously, which is what would be required
to make the vowel stay pure the entire time.
> Just where do you draw the
> line as to the "different" varieties of [I] caused by succeeding (or,
> for that matter, preceding) sounds?
The differences in the pronunciations of vowels that I'm talking about
(formant transitions) are due to place of articulation, so that's
where you draw the line: labials all have the same effect, alveolars
all have the same effect, velars all have the same effect, etc.
anal...@hotmail.com
It is not disputed that neighboring sounds affect each other. Since
human speakers would unthinkingly change vowels in accordance with
following consonnats and vice versa what is the point of naming some
of the modified variants and not naming others? Isn;t it more useless
inside baseball stuff from linguists?
Even in the realm of speech synthesis, it is probably impossible to
store a sufficient number of atomic sounds to handle neighboring-sound
effects adequately.
Nathan Sanders
<663547a7-d25e-4d11...@gh5g2000vbb.googlegroups.com>,
"anal...@hotmail.com" <anal...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> It is not disputed that neighboring sounds affect each other.
Except of course that you did dispute it:
"'rib', 'rig' and 'rid' have consistently different vowels?"
"What utter, unadulterated crap"
"if the 'i' of 'dig' differs from that of 'did'"
"Still, doesn't make a hell of a lot of sense."
> Since
> human speakers would unthinkingly change vowels in accordance with
> following consonnats and vice versa what is the point of naming some
> of the modified variants and not naming others?
Which aspects of the pronunciation of vowels do you think linguists
don't have names for? The aspect under discussion here *does* have a
name; I've been using it, and I even explicitly pointed it out to you
when you first erroneously claimed there was no terminology for it.
Adam Funk
Hey, we need phonemic notation for pronunciation guides in
dictionaries!
> The data from speakers' "same/different" judgments aren't as nearly as
> clean as (older) linguists would generally have you believe.
Hmm. Maybe it's also phonologists vs other kinds of linguists?
--
Nam Sibbyllam quidem Cumis ego ipse oculis meis vidi in ampulla
pendere, et cum illi pueri dicerent: beable beable beable; respondebat
illa: doidy doidy doidy. [plorkwort]
anal...@hotmail.com
> analys...@hotmail.com <analys...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> > Apparently, the velar nasal N can only occur after "lax"vowels (in
> > particular cannot occur after the vowels in the names of the vowels).
>
> > Is this just something that happens to be true or are historical
> > reasons known why it is so?
>
> Historically, /N/ only followed short vowels. Or alternatively,
> /N/ shortened preceding vowels. In Modern English, /N/ can form a
> syllable coda, but in earlier stages of the language, [N] was an
> allophone of /n/ before /k/ or /g/. Since then there has been a
> partial development [Ng] > [N].
>
> Thus the historical situation was this: only short vowels before
> the clusters /ng/ and /nk/. Which seems unremarkable, because
> English tended to have short vowels before most consonant clusters
> anyway.
>
> --
> Christian "naddy" Weisgerber na...@mips.inka.de
Well, the cluster theory cannot account for why [sh] hardly ever
appears after a "tense" vowel and at any rate clusters can follow
tense vowels also. It is true that the clusters of English while
appearing fearsome ("strengths", "twelfths" etc. and even more complex
ones at word boundaries) are made non-prominent by where they occur -
but I don't think they are the reasons for the "tense/lax"
distinction.
Does this distinction make sense for other European IE languages?
anal...@hotmail.com
The dispute is about the erroneous/incomplete presentation of this
phenomenon. here is a better one:
http://asadl.org/jasa/resource/1/jasman/v68/iS1/pS69_s4?bypassSSO=1
Stop release [Wang, J. Speech Hearing Res. (1959)] and the presence/
absence of a falling F1 transition [Wolf, J. Phonetics (1978)] have
been shown to be effective cues to the voicing distinction in final,
post‐vocalic stops in English. Neither, however, are necessary.
Therefore, preliminary speech production data were gathered to
determine the interrelationship of these cues. Spectrographic analysis
indicates (1) that release is predicted by the tenseness of the
preceding vowel: stops following tense vowels are released; those
following lax vowels are not. (2) Besides serving as a cue to [±
voice] in stops, release functions as a segment cue. Final stops
following tense vowels are not predictable by the phonology of the
language, whereas those following lax vowels are. That is, stressed,
tense vowels can end a word in English, but stressed, lax vowels
cannot. Thus, stop release is redundant after a lax vowel, but it has
a high utility after a tense vowel in that it signals the presence of
a stop. (3) stop release and a falling F1, both of which can signal [+
voice] in final stops, are in complementary distribution. Voiced stops
following tense vowels are released and the vowel lacks a falling F1;
voiced stops following lax vowels are unreleased and the vowel
exhibits a noticeable falling F1. In sum, stop release (as a segment
cue) and both release and a falling F1 (as voicing cues) are
predictable on the basis of the tense/lax distinction in the vowel. In
this case, then, the appearance of a particular acoustic cue is a
function of the abstract phonological system of English.
end quote.
Nathan Sanders
<fa016d99-0c57-4fde...@dn9g2000vbb.googlegroups.com>,
"anal...@hotmail.com" <anal...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> On Jun 13, 12:06 am, Nathan Sanders <sand...@alum.mit.edu> wrote:
> > In article
> > <663547a7-d25e-4d11-9b72-2d1b6b2dc...@gh5g2000vbb.googlegroups.com>,
> > "analys...@hotmail.com" <analys...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> > > On Jun 11, 1:08 pm, Nathan Sanders <sand...@alum.mit.edu> wrote:
> > > > The differences in the pronunciations of vowels that I'm talking about
> > > > (formant transitions) are due to place of articulation, so that's
> > > > where you draw the line: labials all have the same effect, alveolars
> > > > all have the same effect, velars all have the same effect, etc.
Keep this in mind: "The differences in the pronunciations of vowels
that I'm talking about (formant transitions) are due to place of
articulation".
Place of articulation.
> > > It is not disputed that neighboring sounds affect each other.
> >
> > Except of course that you did dispute it:
> >
> > "'rib', 'rig' and 'rid' have consistently different vowels?"
> >
> > "What utter, unadulterated crap"
> >
> > "if the 'i' of 'dig' differs from that of 'did'"
> >
> > "Still, doesn't make a hell of a lot of sense."
> >
> > > Since
> > > human speakers would unthinkingly change vowels in accordance with
> > > following consonnats and vice versa what is the point of naming some
> > > of the modified variants and not naming others?
> >
> > Which aspects of the pronunciation of vowels do you think linguists
> > don't have names for? The aspect under discussion here *does* have a
> > name; I've been using it, and I even explicitly pointed it out to you
> > when you first erroneously claimed there was no terminology for it.
>
> The dispute is about the erroneous/incomplete presentation of this
> phenomenon. here is a better one:
>
> http://asadl.org/jasa/resource/1/jasman/v68/iS1/pS69_s4?bypassSSO=1
>
> Stop release [Wang, J. Speech Hearing Res. (1959)] and the presence/
> absence of a falling F1 transition [Wolf, J. Phonetics (1978)] have
> been shown to be effective cues to the voicing distinction in final,
> post-vocalic stops in English.
So why do you think a paper about formant transitions which cue
*voicing distinction* has anything at all to do with the current
discussion about formant transitions which cue *place of articulation*?
anal...@hotmail.com
Are the formants in the two cases different?
remember that speakers/listeners do not convey features individually.
The original formulation didn't consider things like release/non-
release, aspiration, glottalization affrication etc. of the stop as
straregies to communicate and also how tenseness/laxness of the vowel
conditions what happens.
Nathan Sanders
<9660290b-fec7-44ad...@dn9g2000vbb.googlegroups.com>,
"anal...@hotmail.com" <anal...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> Are the formants in the two cases different?
Yes. If you had read this thread and the abstract *you* posted, you'd
know this.
Transitions in F1 are a cue to voicing.
For the places of articulation relevant to English, transitions in F2
and F3 are a cue to place of articulation (for all places of
articulation used in English stops, the F1 transitions are essentially
the same).
> remember that speakers/listeners do not convey features individually.
They can't force a voicing distinction to suddenly be cued by F2 or F3
transitions instead.
> The original formulation didn't consider things like release/non-
> release,
The discussion was explicitly limited to unreleased word-final stops.
Yes, the place of articulation of a stop can be cued by the
frequencies in its release burst, when it has one. Since word-final
stops are often unreleased in English, this cue carries far less
importance than formant transitions do.
Regardless, the release of word-final stops is irrelevant to the
discussion at hand, which was about different places of articulation
in the following stop causing different pronunciations in the
preceding vowel (rib/rid/rig having "consistently different vowels";
your words, even!). Since the release comes *after* the consonant, it
can't possibly be a way that the *preceding* vowel is pronounced
differently!
> aspiration,
Which is irrelevant to word-final stops in English, since they aren't
aspirated, and even if they were, aspiration would be irrelevant to
the discussion at hand, since aspiration is a kind of release, and as
I said above, the release of a stop can't possibly be a way that the
preceding vowel is pronounced differently.
> glottalization
In most dialects of English, glottalization of word-final stops is
tied to voicing, not place of articulation, and hence, would be
irrelevant to the discussion at hand, which was about place of
articulation.
> affrication
Once again, affrication is a type of release, and thus, would be
irrelevant to the discussion at hand.
anal...@hotmail.com
Perhaps a de-weaselized version of the original formulation is
possible, but I have lost interest in it.
I was going to ask if it is known what happens to V and C2 (as a
variation from their isolated (canonical?) forms) in C1VC2 words in
general under different coditioning factors including dialects, but it
would probably be fruitless. I doubt if the raw data are known, let
alone good inferences.
Nathan Sanders
<1bcf7143-ccd4-4669...@a7g2000vby.googlegroups.com>,
"anal...@hotmail.com" <anal...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> Perhaps a de-weaselized version of the original formulation is
> possible, but I have lost interest in it.
How typical: you make some bizarro claim or ask a (usually ill-phrased
and/or ulterior-motived) question, get corrected/answered (usually
with more than enough information to keep an intelligent person
occupied for a while), refuse to accept the correction/answer because
it doesn't suit your preconceived notions, concoct illogical theories
and conduct uninformed search queries to dredge up irrelevant work
that you haven't even read let alone understood, have your multiple
egregious misunderstandings pointed out again, pout, and then quit the
discussion because you think the experts are "weaseling" by giving you
the truth instead of coddling your irrational religious beliefs.
> I was going to ask if it is known what happens to V and C2 (as a
> variation from their isolated (canonical?) forms) in C1VC2 words in
> general under different coditioning factors including dialects, but it
> would probably be fruitless. I doubt if the raw data are known, let
> alone good inferences.
Your doubts are misplaced.
Just because you are unaware of something doesn't mean real scientists
are.
Just because you are unable to comprehend something doesn't mean real
scientists don't.
Just because you are too lazy to research something doesn't mean real
scientists are.
You seem to be very interested in phonetics, but you've shown
absolutely zero understanding of even the most basic notions necessary
to competently discuss phonetics. There is background reading that
you have adamantly refused to do, and yet you blame everyone else for
your lack of understanding.
anal...@hotmail.com
> In article
> <1bcf7143-ccd4-4669-ad48-5145e15ef...@a7g2000vby.googlegroups.com>,
>
>
>
.
>
> You seem to be very interested in
surface phonetic phenomena (themselves sufficiently generalized) as
reflections of the deep structure of the whole language.
There is deep structure in tense/lax - but if you are not interested,
I can't make you interested.
> phonetics, but you've shown
> Nathan
>
> --
> Department of Linguistics
Nathan Sanders
<66d9c247-d043-45f6...@o4g2000vbv.googlegroups.com>,
"anal...@hotmail.com" <anal...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> On Jun 18, 2:00�pm, Nathan Sanders <sand...@alum.mit.edu> wrote:
> > In article
> > <1bcf7143-ccd4-4669-ad48-5145e15ef...@a7g2000vby.googlegroups.com>,
> >
> > You seem to be very interested in
>
> surface phonetic phenomena
And as I said, "but you've shown absolutely zero understanding of even
the most basic notions necessary to competently discuss phonetics.
There is background reading that you have adamantly refused to do, and
yet you blame everyone else for your lack of understanding."
Nathan
António Marques
> In article
> <66d9c247-d043-45f6...@o4g2000vbv.googlegroups.com>,
> "anal...@hotmail.com"<anal...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>> On Jun 18, 2:00 pm, Nathan Sanders<sand...@alum.mit.edu> wrote:
>>> In article
>>> <1bcf7143-ccd4-4669-ad48-5145e15ef...@a7g2000vby.googlegroups.com>,
>>>
>>> You seem to be very interested in
>>
>> surface phonetic phenomena
>
> And as I said, "but you've shown absolutely zero understanding of even
> the most basic notions necessary to competently discuss phonetics.
> There is background reading that you have adamantly refused to do, and
> yet you blame everyone else for your lack of understanding."
The mystery of why you keep trying to instill sense in Sylana's mind is
surpassed only by that of the Nalrah and Znarf Affair.
Brian M. Scott
<anton...@sapo.pt> wrote in
<news:itm018$9lb$1...@dont-email.me> in sci.lang:
> Nathan Sanders wrote (18-06-2011 20:08):
[...]
>> And as I said, "but you've shown absolutely zero
>> understanding of even the most basic notions necessary
>> to competently discuss phonetics. There is background
>> reading that you have adamantly refused to do, and yet
>> you blame everyone else for your lack of understanding."
> The mystery of why you keep trying to instill sense in
> Sylana's mind
Hey, don't knock it: *some* of us benefit!
> is surpassed only by that of the Nalrah and Znarf Affair.
Presumably at least one of the participants is entertained;
I prefer a higher grade of kookery, myself, but de gustibus.
Brian