Spanish <y> and <ll>
Ruud Harmsen
Spanish speakers who distinguish between <ll> and <y> (<ll> being
pronounced as a palatal l) still exist, but are now a minority
worldwide.
For many speakers, in areas of Spain and almost everywhere in the
Americas, these two have merged. My question is: this is probably not
true for all positions of <y>?
The rules I can think of are as follows:
Initial <y> and originally intervocalic <y> has merged with <ll>, but
final <y> (including final before adding a suffix) is still distinct
everywhere.
Examples:
ya, rayos for many speakers would not change their sound if they were
written *lla and *rallos.
But <y> in estoy, voy, soy, doy, hay etc. is always /j/ for all
speakers.
The word <y> meaning "and" is /i/ between vowels, but in
"cuarenta-y-tres" etc. is always /j/ and never coincides with <ll>.
(Last rule of which I am most uncertain):
In words like <rey>, but also the plural <reyes>, <y> is always /j/.
<Relles> would not sound the same as <reyes>.
So <rayos> and <reyes> behave differently.
Am I right?
--
Ruud Harmsen, http://rudhar.eu
Peter T. Daniels
Is there a reason to posit two phonemes /i/ and /y/ in the variety of
Spanish you're referring to?
ranjit_...@yahoo.com
> Spanish speakers who distinguish between <ll> and <y> (<ll> being
> pronounced as a palatal l) still exist, but are now a minority
> worldwide.
>
> For many speakers, in areas of Spain and almost everywhere in the
> Americas, these two have merged. My question is: this is probably not
> true for all positions of <y>?
As far as I can hear, they have not merged in any position. In
intervocalic positions, what I hear is:
<y>: [j]
<ll>: [j:]
Ruud Harmsen
<gram...@verizon.net>: in sci.lang:
>Is there a reason to posit two phonemes /i/ and /y/ in the variety of
>Spanish you're referring to?
You mean /i/ and /j/, no doubt. /y/ is the �berhaupt vowel.
Irrelevant question, so I refuse to answer. Phoneme theory is just a
model that isn't always suitable to describe real world language
observations. The answer to your question doesn't interest me,
although I will read any answers other contributors might provide.
Now back to the questions _I_ posed, please, which _were_ relevant..
--
Ruud Harmsen, http://rudhar.eu
"A fome de estar vivo � t�o intensa / Paix�o que se alimenta de perigo"
(Caman�, Fado Pen�lope, CD Na Linha da Vida)
("De honger om te leven is zo intens / Passie die zich voedt aan gevaar")
Peter T. Daniels
> Fri, 6 Nov 2009 04:26:02 -0800 (PST): "Peter T. Daniels"
>
> >Is there a reason to posit two phonemes /i/ and /y/ in the variety of
> >Spanish you're referring to?
>
>
> Irrelevant question, so I refuse to answer. Phoneme theory is just a
> model that isn't always suitable to describe real world language
> observations. The answer to your question doesn't interest me,
> although I will read any answers other contributors might provide.
You wrote:
"But <y> in estoy, voy, soy, doy, hay etc. is always /j/ for all
speakers.
The word <y> meaning "and" is /i/ between vowels, but in
"cuarenta-y-tres" etc. is always /j/ and never coincides with <ll>. "
What justifies your statement regarding /j/ and /i/?
Ruud Harmsen
<gram...@verizon.net>: in sci.lang:
>On Nov 6, 5:29�pm, Ruud Harmsen <r...@rudhar.eu> wrote:
>> Fri, 6 Nov 2009 04:26:02 -0800 (PST): "Peter T. Daniels"
>> <gramma...@verizon.net>: in sci.lang:
>>
>> >Is there a reason to posit two phonemes /i/ and /y/ in the variety of
>> >Spanish you're referring to?
>>
>> You mean /i/ and /j/, no doubt. /y/ is the �berhaupt vowel.
>>
>> Irrelevant question, so I refuse to answer. Phoneme theory is just a
>> model that isn't always suitable to describe real world language
>> observations. The answer to your question doesn't interest me,
>> although I will read any answers other contributors might provide.
>
>You wrote:
>
>"But <y> in estoy, voy, soy, doy, hay etc. is always /j/ for all
>speakers.
>The word <y> meaning "and" is /i/ between vowels, but in
>"cuarenta-y-tres" etc. is always /j/ and never coincides with <ll>. "
>
>What justifies your statement regarding /j/ and /i/?
Question deliberately ignored for being uninteresting and irrelevant..
Peter T. Daniels
> Fri, 6 Nov 2009 20:36:42 -0800 (PST): "Peter T. Daniels"
>
>
>
>
>
> >On Nov 6, 5:29 pm, Ruud Harmsen <r...@rudhar.eu> wrote:
> >> Fri, 6 Nov 2009 04:26:02 -0800 (PST): "Peter T. Daniels"
> >> <gramma...@verizon.net>: in sci.lang:
>
> >> >Is there a reason to posit two phonemes /i/ and /y/ in the variety of
> >> >Spanish you're referring to?
>
>
> >> Irrelevant question, so I refuse to answer. Phoneme theory is just a
> >> model that isn't always suitable to describe real world language
> >> observations. The answer to your question doesn't interest me,
> >> although I will read any answers other contributors might provide.
>
> >You wrote:
>
> >"But <y> in estoy, voy, soy, doy, hay etc. is always /j/ for all
> >speakers.
> >The word <y> meaning "and" is /i/ between vowels, but in
> >"cuarenta-y-tres" etc. is always /j/ and never coincides with <ll>. "
>
> >What justifies your statement regarding /j/ and /i/?
>
> Question deliberately ignored for being uninteresting and irrelevant..
Yes, as we saw not long ago, your apparent previous understanding of
phonemics has regressed.
Ruud Harmsen
<gram...@verizon.net>: in sci.lang:
>On Nov 7, 4:30�am, Ruud Harmsen <r...@rudhar.eu> wrote:
>> Fri, 6 Nov 2009 20:36:42 -0800 (PST): "Peter T. Daniels"
>> <gramma...@verizon.net>: in sci.lang:
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> >On Nov 6, 5:29�pm, Ruud Harmsen <r...@rudhar.eu> wrote:
>> >> Fri, 6 Nov 2009 04:26:02 -0800 (PST): "Peter T. Daniels"
>> >> <gramma...@verizon.net>: in sci.lang:
>>
>> >> >Is there a reason to posit two phonemes /i/ and /y/ in the variety of
>> >> >Spanish you're referring to?
>>
>> >> You mean /i/ and /j/, no doubt. /y/ is the �berhaupt vowel.
>>
>> >> Irrelevant question, so I refuse to answer. Phoneme theory is just a
>> >> model that isn't always suitable to describe real world language
>> >> observations. The answer to your question doesn't interest me,
>> >> although I will read any answers other contributors might provide.
>>
>> >You wrote:
>>
>> >"But <y> in estoy, voy, soy, doy, hay etc. is always /j/ for all
>> >speakers.
>> >The word <y> meaning "and" is /i/ between vowels, but in
>> >"cuarenta-y-tres" etc. is always /j/ and never coincides with <ll>. "
>>
>> >What justifies your statement regarding /j/ and /i/?
>>
>> Question deliberately ignored for being uninteresting and irrelevant..
>
>Yes, as we saw not long ago, your apparent previous understanding of
>phonemics has regressed.
My question wasn't about phonemics, but about Spanish. You are fouling
the discussion again, by your personal attacks that contribute nothing
to the question I posed. I refuse to discuss this with you because I
know beforehand that you are not aiming at a solution, not at more
knowledge or better insight, but only at kicking others down in order
to look better yourself. You don't, on the contrary.
Peter T. Daniels
> Sat, 7 Nov 2009 05:03:32 -0800 (PST): "Peter T. Daniels"
>
>
>
>
>
> >On Nov 7, 4:30 am, Ruud Harmsen <r...@rudhar.eu> wrote:
> >> Fri, 6 Nov 2009 20:36:42 -0800 (PST): "Peter T. Daniels"
> >> <gramma...@verizon.net>: in sci.lang:
>
> >> >On Nov 6, 5:29 pm, Ruud Harmsen <r...@rudhar.eu> wrote:
> >> >> Fri, 6 Nov 2009 04:26:02 -0800 (PST): "Peter T. Daniels"
> >> >> <gramma...@verizon.net>: in sci.lang:
>
> >> >> >Is there a reason to posit two phonemes /i/ and /y/ in the variety of
> >> >> >Spanish you're referring to?
>
>
> >> >> Irrelevant question, so I refuse to answer. Phoneme theory is just a
> >> >> model that isn't always suitable to describe real world language
> >> >> observations. The answer to your question doesn't interest me,
> >> >> although I will read any answers other contributors might provide.
>
> >> >You wrote:
>
> >> >"But <y> in estoy, voy, soy, doy, hay etc. is always /j/ for all
> >> >speakers.
> >> >The word <y> meaning "and" is /i/ between vowels, but in
> >> >"cuarenta-y-tres" etc. is always /j/ and never coincides with <ll>. "
>
> >> >What justifies your statement regarding /j/ and /i/?
>
> >> Question deliberately ignored for being uninteresting and irrelevant..
>
> >Yes, as we saw not long ago, your apparent previous understanding of
> >phonemics has regressed.
>
> My question wasn't about phonemics, but about Spanish. You are fouling
> the discussion again, by your personal attacks that contribute nothing
> to the question I posed. I refuse to discuss this with you because I
> know beforehand that you are not aiming at a solution, not at more
> knowledge or better insight, but only at kicking others down in order
> to look better yourself. You don't, on the contrary.
How is it not relevant to the phonemic inventory of Spanish, not to
know what phonemes are included in that inventory?
Ruud Harmsen
<gram...@verizon.net>: in sci.lang:
>How is it not relevant to the phonemic inventory of Spanish, not to
>know what phonemes are included in that inventory?
Again, all I wanted to know is whether in "rayos" and "reyes" what is
written as "y" sound different in all known kind of Spanish. Please
answer that question or if you don't know, wait until others do.
Peter T. Daniels
> Sat, 7 Nov 2009 08:23:00 -0800 (PST): "Peter T. Daniels"
>
> >How is it not relevant to the phonemic inventory of Spanish, not to
> >know what phonemes are included in that inventory?
>
> Again, all I wanted to know is whether in "rayos" and "reyes" what is
> written as "y" sound different in all known kind of Spanish. Please
> answer that question or if you don't know, wait until others do.
"Sound different" to whom? If they sound different to native speakers,
then they are phonemic; if not, then not. If they sound different to
non-Spanish-speakers but not to Spanish-speakers, then what does it
matter?
Ruud Harmsen
<gram...@verizon.net>: in sci.lang:
If you are ignorant about Spanish, please stay out of this thread.
Ruud Harmsen
sci.lang:
>I think it has been mentioned several times here, and I agree, that
>Spanish speakers who distinguish between <ll> and <y> (<ll> being
>pronounced as a palatal l) still exist, but are now a minority
>worldwide.
>
>For many speakers, in areas of Spain and almost everywhere in the
>Americas, these two have merged. My question is: this is probably not
>true for all positions of <y>?
http://liceu.uab.es/~joaquim/publicacions/SAMPA_Spanish_93.pdf
===
[...] and the affricate allophone of /y/ appear according to the
character of the preceding consonant.
/===
Allophone?
Ruud Harmsen
<gram...@verizon.net>: in sci.lang:
>> Again, all I wanted to know is whether in "rayos" and "reyes" what is
>> written as "y" sound different in all known kind of Spanish. Please
>> answer that question or if you don't know, wait until others do.
>
>"Sound different" to whom?
If mine is an illegitimate question, let me ask this:
Does "reyes" have the estoy sound or the rayos sound?
Or perhaps this is also a kind of question forbidden by scientist? Is
science a way to impede questions aimed at finding the truth? Is the
objective of science to make people know less instead of more? It's
not the first time I get that impression of your view on science.
garabik-ne...@kassiopeia.juls.savba.sk
>
> "Sound different" to whom? If they sound different to native speakers,
> then they are phonemic; if not, then not. If they sound different to
> non-Spanish-speakers but not to Spanish-speakers, then what does it
> matter?
If you are learning Spanish and do not want to sound "strange" to the
natives, you might want to learn to pronounce the difference properly.
Famously, [β] and [b] are allophones, but if you do not get their
distribution right, you'll never get rid of your foreign accent...
--
-----------------------------------------------------------
| Radovan Garabík http://kassiopeia.juls.savba.sk/~garabik/ |
| __..--^^^--..__ garabik @ kassiopeia.juls.savba.sk |
-----------------------------------------------------------
Antivirus alert: file .signature infected by signature virus.
Hi! I'm a signature virus! Copy me into your signature file to help me spread!
Bart Mathias
The affricate one is described as [dZ] and of low frequency on page 6.
Further down on that page, "According to Wells (1989:52) the palatal
fricative consonant /y/ can be considered an allophone of the semivowel
[j]," which sounds kind of strange. How can you have an allophone of a
phone? Later in that paragraph, "It is widely accepted that the phoneme
/y/ can be realized as a fricative, as an approximant, and also as
an affricate under certain conditions." But he doesn't present any IPA,
and just rewrites the phoneme as "/jj/."
Meanwhile, he SAMPA-phonemicizes <ll> as /L/.
I had a sister-in-law from Guadalajara for a while, 40 years ago. My
brother had told her I spoke Spanish, so when we met she tried to
converse with me in that language. She gave up in disgust when I
apparently didn't even know the word "gallo." I heard what I remember as
a voiceless palatal affricate between the vowels, but maybe it was a
voiced approximate, where I would have expected a [j] on the basis of my
book-learning.
Bart Mathias
Peter T. Daniels
> Sat, 7 Nov 2009 09:31:51 -0800 (PST): "Peter T. Daniels"
>
> >On Nov 7, 11:57 am, Ruud Harmsen <r...@rudhar.eu> wrote:
> >> Sat, 7 Nov 2009 08:23:00 -0800 (PST): "Peter T. Daniels"
> >> <gramma...@verizon.net>: in sci.lang:
>
> >> >How is it not relevant to the phonemic inventory of Spanish, not to
> >> >know what phonemes are included in that inventory?
>
> >> Again, all I wanted to know is whether in "rayos" and "reyes" what is
> >> written as "y" sound different in all known kind of Spanish. Please
> >> answer that question or if you don't know, wait until others do.
>
> >"Sound different" to whom? If they sound different to native speakers,
> >then they are phonemic; if not, then not. If they sound different to
> >non-Spanish-speakers but not to Spanish-speakers, then what does it
> >matter?
>
> If you are ignorant about Spanish, please stay out of this thread.
If you are ignorant about linguistics, please stay out of this
newsgroup.
Peter T. Daniels
wrote:
> Peter T. Daniels <gramma...@verizon.net> wrote:
>
> > "Sound different" to whom? If they sound different to native speakers,
> > then they are phonemic; if not, then not. If they sound different to
> > non-Spanish-speakers but not to Spanish-speakers, then what does it
> > matter?
>
> If you are learning Spanish and do not want to sound "strange" to the
> natives, you might want to learn to pronounce the difference properly.
> Famously, [β] and [b] are allophones, but if you do not get their
> distribution right, you'll never get rid of your foreign accent...
There are many, many varieties of Spanish. Some have [B], some don't.
Ruud Harmsen
<gram...@verizon.net>: in sci.lang:
>There are many, many varieties of Spanish. Some have [B], some don't.
Same one that hasn't.
Ruud Harmsen
sci.lang:
>Sat, 7 Nov 2009 15:01:32 -0800 (PST): "Peter T. Daniels"
><gram...@verizon.net>: in sci.lang:
>>There are many, many varieties of Spanish. Some have [B], some don't.
>
>Same one that hasn't.
Check posts before sending, asshole!
Name one that hasn't, please, Mr. Daniels.
Peter T. Daniels
> Sun, 08 Nov 2009 07:50:14 +0100: Ruud Harmsen <r...@rudhar.eu>: in
> sci.lang:
>
> >Sat, 7 Nov 2009 15:01:32 -0800 (PST): "Peter T. Daniels"
> >>There are many, many varieties of Spanish. Some have [B], some don't.
>
> >Same one that hasn't.
>
> Check posts before sending, asshole!
>
> Name one that hasn't, please, Mr. Daniels.
Materials on Spanish available to me are very limited (since I have no
interest in the language). Neither the Routledge nor the Cambridge
Green volume on Romance discusses Spanish dialectology, nor the
chapter in Comrie's WML.But from Current Trends 10 (North America), I
find that more than forty years ago, in "Mexican-American" Spanish,
i.e. the Spanish of the US Southwest, [v] had just about completely
ousted [B]; which coheres with the fact that I do not hear [B] in the
Spanish all around me in Jersey City (which presumably reflects Puerto
Rican, Dominican, Cuban, some Central American, and apparently
Argentinian varieties).
Ruud Harmsen
<gram...@verizon.net>: in sci.lang:
>On Nov 8, 3:18�am, Ruud Harmsen <r...@rudhar.eu> wrote:
>> Sun, 08 Nov 2009 07:50:14 +0100: Ruud Harmsen <r...@rudhar.eu>: in
>> sci.lang:
>>
>> >Sat, 7 Nov 2009 15:01:32 -0800 (PST): "Peter T. Daniels"
>> ><gramma...@verizon.net>: in sci.lang:
>> >>There are many, many varieties of Spanish. Some have [B], some don't.
>>
>> >Same one that hasn't.
>>
>> Check posts before sending, asshole!
>>
>> Name one that hasn't, please, Mr. Daniels.
>
>Materials on Spanish available to me are very limited (since I have no
>interest in the language).
OK!
>Neither the Routledge nor the Cambridge
>Green volume on Romance discusses Spanish dialectology, nor the
>chapter in Comrie's WML.But from Current Trends 10 (North America), I
>find that more than forty years ago, in "Mexican-American" Spanish,
>i.e. the Spanish of the US Southwest, [v] had just about completely
>ousted [B]; which coheres with the fact that I do not hear [B] in the
>Spanish all around me in Jersey City (which presumably reflects Puerto
>Rican, Dominican, Cuban, some Central American, and apparently
>Argentinian varieties).
Seem likely that [v] comes from English influence. The merger between
<b> and <v> in Old-Spanish took place maybe around 1600 of some such
(perhaps much earlier?), Portuguese still has them distinct (but not
northern dialects) and maybe Ladino? So could South and Central
American Spanish have been based on dialects that still had <v> and
<b> apart?
Does the distinction you heard follow the spelling, or is it just just
allophones [b] and [B] have been replaced by [b] and [v] for a single
phoneme /b/?
Peter T. Daniels
> Sun, 8 Nov 2009 09:45:28 -0800 (PST): "Peter T. Daniels"
I don't know Spanish (except for things like "la parada!" which is
Spanish for "Next stop, please," without the "please"). So I am not
hearing lexical items; I'm merely not hearing those hoity-toity
Iberian sounds.
António Marques
I'll have to begin by saying that I know little spanish and
unfortunately I'll have to agree that you posed your questions
confusingly and it could have been avoided by paying due attention to
we-all-know-what. That said, I'll try to interpret. You seem to be
saying that:
1. The phonemes written <ll> and <y> have merged for most speakers in
initial and medial position.
2. That isn't true for final position.
3. The phoneme written <y> is realised [j] in final position.
4. Words ending with the phoneme written <y> form their plurals adding
<es>, resulting in an <y> in medial position which you seek to know
whether it differs or not from the merged ones in (1).
I *think* the answers to your questions are:
1. Yes.
2. As <ll> doesn't occur in final position, this idea seems
unwarranted; if <-ll> does occur in a small number of words that I'm
not aware of, and sounds different from <-y>, then that still doesn't
mean that <-y> sounds different from <-y-/-ll-> and (more
importantly), that is is a different phoneme.
3. <y/ll> seems to have a number of allophones, of which the most
heard are [j] and [tC]/its-voiced-counterpart, tthough I don't think
the latter appears in final position.
4. I don't think there's any difference between reyes and rayos.
In short, for many speakers there is a merger, for some the isn't, for
a reasonable number there may still be two phonemes but with very
similar realisations, but whatever the case the final position isn't
any different from the others (meaning that even if -y is pronounced
differently from -y-, all -y- are pronounced the same regardless of
being part of the plural of -y or not (showing that phonemics isn't
irrelevant or inadequate), and the treatment of -y isn't all that
significant since it has little to do with ll anyway - as there is no
final -ll).
John Atkinson
> On Nov 6, 5:00 am, Ruud Harmsen <r...@rudhar.eu> wrote:
>> I think it has been mentioned several times here, and I agree, that
>> Spanish speakers who distinguish between <ll> and <y> (<ll> being
>> pronounced as a palatal l) still exist, but are now a minority
>> worldwide.
>>
>> For many speakers, in areas of Spain and almost everywhere in the
>> Americas, these two have merged. My question is: this is probably not
>> true for all positions of <y>?
>
> As far as I can hear, they have not merged in any position. In
> intervocalic positions, what I hear is:
> <y>: [j]
> <ll>: [j:]
>
observations are in western Argentina, where both are [Z] (never [Z:],
I'm pretty sure!).
FWIW, every text I've seen claims <pollo> and <poyo>, <malla> and
<maya>, etc to be homomyms in all yeista dialects.
>
>> The rules I can think of are as follows:
>>
>> Initial <y> and originally intervocalic <y> has merged with <ll>, but
>> final <y> (including final before adding a suffix) is still distinct
>> everywhere.
>>
But even in non-yeista varieties (which don't merge <y> and <ll>),
<-ll> is never word-final, so what on earth do you mean by "final <y> is
distinct everywhere" -- distinct from what?
>>
>> Examples:
>> ya, rayos for many speakers would not change their sound if they were
>> written *lla and *rallos.
>>
>> But <y> in estoy, voy, soy, doy, hay etc. is always /j/ for all
>> speakers.
>
Of course. A word like *estoll never occurs in Spanish. Unlike
Catalan, which does allow final -ll.
>
>> The word <y> meaning "and" is /i/ between vowels, but in
>> "cuarenta-y-tres" etc. is always /j/ and never coincides with <ll>.
>>
>> (Last rule of which I am most uncertain):
>>
>> In words like <rey>, but also the plural <reyes>, <y> is always /j/.
>> <Relles> would not sound the same as <reyes>.
>> So <rayos> and <reyes> behave differently.
>>
>> Am I right?
>>
I don't think so...
J.
Ruud Harmsen
in sci.lang:
>>> Initial <y> and originally intervocalic <y> has merged with <ll>, but
>>> final <y> (including final before adding a suffix) is still distinct
>>> everywhere.
>>>
>But even in non-yeista varieties (which don't merge <y> and <ll>),
><-ll> is never word-final, so what on earth do you mean by "final <y> is
>distinct everywhere" -- distinct from what?
Final <y> remains [j], doesn't become [dZ], so if different from <ll>
(in any position) which is often also [dZ]. Examples: estoy, voy, rey,
reyes, as opposed to rayos.
>>> Examples:
>>> ya, rayos for many speakers would not change their sound if they were
>>> written *lla and *rallos.
>>>
>>> But <y> in estoy, voy, soy, doy, hay etc. is always /j/ for all
>>> speakers.
>>
>Of course. A word like *estoll never occurs in Spanish. Unlike
>Catalan, which does allow final -ll.
I know. So?
>>> The word <y> meaning "and" is /i/ between vowels, but in
>>> "cuarenta-y-tres" etc. is always /j/ and never coincides with <ll>.
>>>
>>> (Last rule of which I am most uncertain):
>>>
>>> In words like <rey>, but also the plural <reyes>, <y> is always /j/.
>>> <Relles> would not sound the same as <reyes>.
>>> So <rayos> and <reyes> behave differently.
>>>
>>> Am I right?
>>>
>I don't think so...
So which word is pronounced different than what I thought? Rayos?
Reyes? I still don't have a definite answer to that, despite numerous
posts in this thread.
My central question in fact was (but maybe I was unclear about that):
does <reyes> really have [j] and never [Z], [dZ] and is it different
from <rayos> in that respect?
Isn't it possible to put all quibbling about phonemics and / / and [ ]
aside and simply tell me how certain words are pronounced?
Ruud Harmsen
<ent...@gmail.com>: in sci.lang:
>I'll have to begin by saying that I know little spanish and
>unfortunately I'll have to agree that you posed your questions
>confusingly and it could have been avoided by paying due attention to
>we-all-know-what.
"We" may all know, but I don't. What should I have payed attention to,
praytell?
>4. I don't think there's any difference between reyes and rayos.
I'd still like to see that confirmed or denied by native speakers or
other people in the know. That was the central question and it is stil
unanswered.
Ruud Harmsen
sci.lang:
>My central question in fact was (but maybe I was unclear about that):
>does <reyes> really have [j] and never [Z], [dZ] and is it different
>from <rayos> in that respect?
>
>Isn't it possible to put all quibbling about phonemics and / / and [ ]
>aside and simply tell me how certain words are pronounced?
More, similar questions:
What is the pr. of <leyes>, plural of <ley> ("law")?
And what about Paraguayos, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Los_Paraguayos
Uruguayo http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uruguay ?
http://tools.verbix.com/webverbix/Spanish.html?verb=haber&imageField.x=0&imageField.y=0
hay; haya, hayan etc.?
http://tools.verbix.com/webverbix/Spanish.html?verb=ser&imageField.x=0&imageField.y=0
sayo, sayeron?
http://tools.verbix.com/webverbix/Spanish.html?verb=ir&imageField.x=0&imageField.y=0
voy; vaya, vayas etc.?
Ruud Harmsen
===
El ye�smo no se aplica a los diptongos fon�ticos con /i-/ inicial,
tales como los que aparecen en las palabras hielo o hierba.
/===
So <hierba> and <yerba> are NOT homophones??
ranjit_...@yahoo.com
> ranjit_math...@yahoo.com wrote:
> > On Nov 6, 5:00 am, Ruud Harmsen <r...@rudhar.eu> wrote:
> >> I think it has been mentioned several times here, and I agree, that
> >> Spanish speakers who distinguish between <ll> and <y> (<ll> being
> >> pronounced as a palatal l) still exist, but are now a minority
> >> worldwide.
>
> >> For many speakers, in areas of Spain and almost everywhere in the
> >> Americas, these two have merged. My question is: this is probably not
> >> true for all positions of <y>?
>
> > As far as I can hear, they have not merged in any position. In
> > intervocalic positions, what I hear is:
> > <y>: [j]
> > <ll>: [j:]
>
> Interesting. Whereabouts did your consultant come from?
My observations from listening to Spanish in Los Angeles. Relleno
sounds like it has [j:], not [j]. Come to think of it, though,
Tortilla might have something close to [j].
> My own
> observations are in western Argentina, where both are [Z] (never [Z:],
> I'm pretty sure!).
Do you speak any language that has phonemic geminates? If not, you
might not hear long consonants where I hear them. I hear zapato as
[sapAt:o], possibly because the timing of the [t] is more similar to
the timing of the [t:] in Malayalam than to the timing of the [t] in
Malayalam.
> FWIW, every text I've seen claims <pollo> and <poyo>, <malla> and
> <maya>, etc to be homomyms in all yeista dialects.
> But even in non-yeista varieties (which don't merge <y> and <ll>),
> <-ll> is never word-final, so what on earth do you mean by "final <y> is
> distinct everywhere" -- distinct from what?
I didn't mean to say anything about final <y>. My observations are
limited to intervocalic contexts.
António Marques
> Isn't it possible to put all quibbling about phonemics and / / and [
> ] aside and simply tell me how certain words are pronounced?
No, because the source of your doubts and/or the strange way you've
presented them seems to center precisely around the phonemics stuff.
It's almost as if you were demanding to know how to solve an equation
but didn't want any of that maths stuff.
António Marques
> Sun, 8 Nov 2009 18:27:34 -0800 (PST): António Marques
> <ent...@gmail.com>: in sci.lang:
>
>> I'll have to begin by saying that I know little spanish and
>> unfortunately I'll have to agree that you posed your questions
>> confusingly and it could have been avoided by paying due attention to
>> we-all-know-what.
>
> "We" may all know, but I don't. What should I have payed attention to,
> praytell?
Calm down. I say 'we-all-know-what' to avoid mentioning 'phonemics'.
>> 4. I don't think there's any difference between reyes and rayos.
>
> I'd still like to see that confirmed or denied by native speakers or
> other people in the know. That was the central question and it is stil
> unanswered.
It *is* answered. I just gave you the answer. John did too. You might
like to have it confirmed by natives, but it's not our fault that there
seem to be none here.
António Marques
> http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yeísmo
> ===
> El yeísmo no se aplica a los diptongos fonéticos con /i-/ inicial,
> tales como los que aparecen en las palabras hielo o hierba.
> /===
>
> So<hierba> and<yerba> are NOT homophones??
Whoever wrote that seems to be making a distinction (poorly) between
hi-er-ba and yer-ba. Or rather, denying that yerba exists at all (though
still caliing hie- a 'phonetic diphthong', which just has sloppiness
written all over it).
Andrew Woode
> Sun, 8 Nov 2009 09:45:28 -0800 (PST): "Peter T. Daniels"
I don't believe there are dialects which preserve the historical b/v
distinction*, but if there
were the distribution of phonemes would not be the same as the modern
spelling distinction, which is largely etymological (certainly for
medial consonants).
* I've heard it claimed that some Valencians import the b/v
distinction into their Castilian, but I imagine this is on the basis
of Valencian cognates or spelling.
> --
> Ruud Harmsen,http://rudhar.eu
Ruud Harmsen
sci.lang:
>Ruud Harmsen wrote:
>
>> Isn't it possible to put all quibbling about phonemics and / / and [
>> ] aside and simply tell me how certain words are pronounced?
>
>No, because the source of your doubts and/or the strange way you've
>presented them seems to center precisely around the phonemics stuff.
Is it possible to draw conclusions about phonemics before the
phonetics data have been gathered?
I am actually asking some phonetics questions ("how is this word
pronounced"), but I am attacked on phonemics conclusions I didn't
draw, couldn't draw for lack of data, and might not even want to draw!
How that for methodology?
>It's almost as if you were demanding to know how to solve an equation
>but didn't want any of that maths stuff.
If the treatment of my questions is an example of linguistics, of a
scientific approach to languages, then I conclude that science is in
the way, is an obstacle to simple fact finding.
So I repeat some of my simple questions:
Does <y> in Spanish words like "reyes" and "leyes" sound the same as
in "rayos" and "hallar"?
So far still nobody answered that simple question, instead I got tens
of unsollicited critiques about the unclear formulation of my
questions and wrong assumptions about phonemes.
If that is linguistics, I am glad I never went to university to study
it.
Peter T. Daniels
> Mon, 09 Nov 2009 13:45:13 +0000: António Marques <m...@sapo.pt>: in
> sci.lang:
>
> >Ruud Harmsen wrote:
>
> >> Isn't it possible to put all quibbling about phonemics and / / and [
> >> ] aside and simply tell me how certain words are pronounced?
>
> >No, because the source of your doubts and/or the strange way you've
> >presented them seems to center precisely around the phonemics stuff.
>
> Is it possible to draw conclusions about phonemics before the
> phonetics data have been gathered?
Of course. All that matters for "phonemics" (phonology) is whether two
utterances are SAME or DIFFERENT. If a native speaker insists that two
words are different, and you can't hear the difference, you probably
have to figure out what the native speaker is hearing that you aren't
(and vice versa); but the phonologist is certainly free to simply mark
a form with an index and worry about what it means later on. I'd have
to do that for the feature [flat] vs. [plain] in Modern Aramaic -- I
simply cannot hear the difference. (Of course part of the problem may
be that Yona Sabar was trying to teach it to me in a noisy taxicab
between Miami and Miami Beach, but still.)
> I am actually asking some phonetics questions ("how is this word
> pronounced"), but I am attacked on phonemics conclusions I didn't
> draw, couldn't draw for lack of data, and might not even want to draw!
>
> How that for methodology?
>
> >It's almost as if you were demanding to know how to solve an equation
> >but didn't want any of that maths stuff.
>
> If the treatment of my questions is an example of linguistics, of a
> scientific approach to languages, then I conclude that science is in
> the way, is an obstacle to simple fact finding.
You are looking for facts other than facts that are relevant to
linguistics.
> So I repeat some of my simple questions:
> Does <y> in Spanish words like "reyes" and "leyes" sound the same as
> in "rayos" and "hallar"?
Sound the same to whom? As long as you refuse to answer that question,
it is impossible to answer your question.
After all, no two utterances of even exactly the same stretch of
language "sound" exactly "the same."
> So far still nobody answered that simple question, instead I got tens
> of unsollicited critiques about the unclear formulation of my
> questions and wrong assumptions about phonemes.
If everyone tells you that your question is unclear, shouldn't that
get you to considering whether your question is unclear?
> If that is linguistics, I am glad I never went to university to study
> it.
If you _had_ done, you would have learned what linguistics really is.
Ponder this: the notion of "phoneme" was most clearly and
influentially explicated by a _phonetician_, Daniel Jones, who was
quite contemptuous of linguistic theory (due, his biographers think,
to personal animosity to J. R. Firth, who defected from his phonetics
department at UCL to set up a linguistics department in the same
institution).
Ruud Harmsen
sci.lang:
>Ruud Harmsen wrote:
>> Sun, 8 Nov 2009 18:27:34 -0800 (PST): Ant�nio Marques
>> <ent...@gmail.com>: in sci.lang:
>>
>>> I'll have to begin by saying that I know little spanish and
>>> unfortunately I'll have to agree that you posed your questions
>>> confusingly and it could have been avoided by paying due attention to
>>> we-all-know-what.
>>
>> "We" may all know, but I don't. What should I have payed attention to,
>> praytell?
>
>Calm down. I say 'we-all-know-what' to avoid mentioning 'phonemics'.
Again, how can it make sense to involve phonemics in a stage where the
phonetics aren't even known?
If the language of a tribe in the jungle is first studied, is it the
usual method to first posit the phonemes of that language, and THEN
study the words of that language and how they are pronounced?
You can't answer questions about what words in that language sound,
UNTIL you have decided what phonemes it has?
>>> 4. I don't think there's any difference between reyes and rayos.
>>
>> I'd still like to see that confirmed or denied by native speakers or
>> other people in the know. That was the central question and it is stil
>> unanswered.
>
>It *is* answered. I just gave you the answer.
THE answer? You said you THINK there's no difference. Your not a
native speaker. The only native speaker in the thread didn't directly
address this question.
>John did too.
Where? Message ID? If you mean John Atkinson, I saw him reply in this
thread once, and he didn't say if rayos and reyes are different, he
only said he thinks I wasn't right. But about what exactly he didn't
say.
>You might
>like to have it confirmed by natives, but it's not our fault that there
>seem to be none here.
--
Ruud Harmsen, http://rudhar.eu
Peter T. Daniels
> Mon, 09 Nov 2009 13:47:22 +0000: António Marques <m...@sapo.pt>: in
> sci.lang:
>
> >Ruud Harmsen wrote:
> >> Sun, 8 Nov 2009 18:27:34 -0800 (PST): António Marques
> >> <ento...@gmail.com>: in sci.lang:
>
> >>> I'll have to begin by saying that I know little spanish and
> >>> unfortunately I'll have to agree that you posed your questions
> >>> confusingly and it could have been avoided by paying due attention to
> >>> we-all-know-what.
>
> >> "We" may all know, but I don't. What should I have payed attention to,
> >> praytell?
>
> >Calm down. I say 'we-all-know-what' to avoid mentioning 'phonemics'.
>
> Again, how can it make sense to involve phonemics in a stage where the
> phonetics aren't even known?
Until you've identified SAME and DIFFERENT, you don't know where to
look for the details.
> If the language of a tribe in the jungle is first studied, is it the
> usual method to first posit the phonemes of that language, and THEN
> study the words of that language and how they are pronounced?
Yes. Because the first information you get is whether words are SAME
or DIFFERENT.
> You can't answer questions about what words in that language sound,
> UNTIL you have decided what phonemes it has?
You write down the words in increasingly narrow transcription as you
become familiar with the language. Soon enough you will discover that,
say, you don't need to bother to notate aspiration (if you were doing
fieldwork in English) or that you _do_ need to attend to _something_
going on in the [t] area (if you're doing Malayalam).
Ruud Harmsen
<gram...@verizon.net>: in sci.lang:
>> If the treatment of my questions is an example of linguistics, of a
>> scientific approach to languages, then I conclude that science is in
>> the way, is an obstacle to simple fact finding.
>
>You are looking for facts other than facts that are relevant to
>linguistics.
Right. To build a phonemic model of Spanish, it doesn't matter how
Spanish is pronounced. That's what linguistics is all about. It's
clear to me now.
>> So I repeat some of my simple questions:
>> Does <y> in Spanish words like "reyes" and "leyes" sound the same as
>> in "rayos" and "hallar"?
>
>Sound the same to whom?
Does it have [j] or does it something like [dZ]?
Does it have the estoy vowel or does it have the hallar vowel?
Is that really so difficult to answer?
>As long as you refuse to answer that question,
>it is impossible to answer your question.
That's absurd.
>After all, no two utterances of even exactly the same stretch of
>language "sound" exactly "the same."
True, but utterly irrelevant. Did you ever hear spoken Spanish at all,
I wonder?
>> So far still nobody answered that simple question, instead I got tens
>> of unsollicited critiques about the unclear formulation of my
>> questions and wrong assumptions about phonemes.
>
>If everyone tells you that your question is unclear, shouldn't that
>get you to considering whether your question is unclear?
I insist that my questions are crystal clear.
>> If that is linguistics, I am glad I never went to university to study
>> it.
>
>If you _had_ done, you would have learned what linguistics really is.
I know what it is by now: a compisition of theories and terminology
and pseudo problems that have nothing whatsoever to do with the
realities of real languages.
>Ponder this: the notion of "phoneme" was most clearly and
>influentially explicated by a _phonetician_, Daniel Jones, who was
>quite contemptuous of linguistic theory (due, his biographers think,
>to personal animosity to J. R. Firth, who defected from his phonetics
>department at UCL to set up a linguistics department in the same
>institution).
I don't care. If linguistics is such that it makes my simple question
unclear and unanswerable, there must be something wrong with it.
Also, it is now clear that sci.lang is not the place to ask my simple
questions. I'll try to collect my data elsewhere then.
Ruud Harmsen
<gram...@verizon.net>: in sci.lang:
>> Again, how can it make sense to involve phonemics in a stage where the
>> phonetics aren't even known?
>
>Until you've identified SAME and DIFFERENT, you don't know where to
>look for the details.
Nonsense. The details are known already and have been for years. Look
at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ye�smo and
http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ye�smo
You think _I_ discovered this and invented it yesterday?
>> You can't answer questions about what words in that language sound,
>> UNTIL you have decided what phonemes it has?
>
>You write down the words in increasingly narrow transcription as you
>become familiar with the language.
So please write down rayos, reyes and leyes down for me in some narrow
enough transcription. Tell me if it has [j] or [dZ]. That's all I
asked.
>Soon enough you will discover that,
>say, you don't need to bother to notate aspiration (if you were doing
>fieldwork in English) or that you _do_ need to attend to _something_
>going on in the [t] area (if you're doing Malayalam).
Did you think I didn't know that? Do you think I'm totally stupid?
Nathan Sanders
Ruud Harmsen <r...@rudhar.eu> wrote:
> I insist that my questions are crystal clear.
I understood your questions. I don't study SPanish dialects, however,
so I didn't know the answers.
Nathan
--
Nathan Sanders
Linguistics Program
Williams College
http://wso.williams.edu/~nsanders/
António Marques
> Also, it is now clear that sci.lang is not the place to ask my simple
> questions. I'll try to collect my data elsewhere then.
Just what IS the matter with you today?
Ruud Harmsen
sci.lang:
>>> So I repeat some of my simple questions:
>>> Does <y> in Spanish words like "reyes" and "leyes" sound the same as
>>> in "rayos" and "hallar"?
>>
>>Sound the same to whom?
>
>Does it have [j] or does it something like [dZ]?
>
>Does it have the estoy vowel or does it have the hallar vowel?
This last one is in fact exactly the SAME/DIFFERENT question PTD says
I should have been asking all along. Yet in sci.lang my questions are
unanimously considered too unclear to be answerable.
Go figure.
Ruud Harmsen
sci.lang:
>Ruud Harmsen wrote:
Bad mood; but also naming things by their name, describing them as
they are, even if that may be painful to some.
Trond Engen
Unanimously?
--
Trond Engen
António Marques
> Mon, 09 Nov 2009 17:55:23 +0000: António Marques<m....@sapo.pt>: in
> sci.lang:
>
>> Ruud Harmsen wrote:
>>
>>> Also, it is now clear that sci.lang is not the place to ask my simple
>>> questions. I'll try to collect my data elsewhere then.
>>
>> Just what IS the matter with you today?
>
> Bad mood; but also naming things by their name, describing them as
> they are, even if that may be painful to some.
I've adopted that stance since some weeks ago, but that doesn't include
condemning an entire newsgroup only because, of the 3 people who
replied, none are native speakers, one has insisted yet again that you
use correct notation (come on, if you don't want anything to do with
phonemes, why do you keep using //?) and the other two have pointed out
answers to your question that imply it would be best be posed precisely
within the framework you claim to dislike.
Ruud Harmsen
sci.lang:
>use correct notation (come on, if you don't want anything to do with
>phonemes, why do you keep using //?)
Because I expected they might be phonemes, but didn't know yet. I was
gathering data to make a better judgement. Maybe. Just knowing the
pronunciation of the words in question would also have been
interesting.
>and the other two have pointed out answers to your question that
>imply it would be best be posed precisely within the framework
>you claim to dislike.
So be it. However, I really wouldn't know what such posing would look
like, other than how I already did it.
Bart Mathias
> Mon, 9 Nov 2009 07:13:51 -0800 (PST): "Peter T. Daniels"
> <gram...@verizon.net>: in sci.lang:
>
>>> Again, how can it make sense to involve phonemics in a stage where the
>>> phonetics aren't even known?
>> Until you've identified SAME and DIFFERENT, you don't know where to
>> look for the details.
>
> Nonsense. The details are known already and have been for years. Look
> at
> http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yeísmo
Do linguists of Spanish really use phonetic symbols for phonemes, "/ʎ/"
and "/ʝ/"? Usually one wants something more easily typeable.
I am hoping that if we ever get an authoritative answer to your "reyes"
vs. "rayos" question, it will be "Yes, the 'y' in both words is
pronounced the same, both [ʝ]."
For me, another question is raising its ugly head. I've always assumed
that unaccented "i" before another vowel represented the same phoneme.
But according to the article you cite (the en. one, at least), the
"y"/"ll" one will be [dʒ] or [ɟ͠ʝ] after pause. If the "i" in "hier" for
example were the same phoneme, then a sentence beginning "Hier ..."
should sound like [dʒer ...]. I hope that is wrong. Even with [ʝ] in
non-initial position, things like "Diós" would end up sounding more like
[dʒos] than the [djos] I've always sung.
Maybe this is what your quote from the es.wikipedia, "El yeísmo no se
aplica a los diptongos fonéticos con /i-/ inicial, tales como los que
aparecen en las palabras hielo o hierba," was sort of getting at?
Bart Mathias
António Marques
> Mon, 09 Nov 2009 18:53:23 +0000: António Marques<m....@sapo.pt>: in
> sci.lang:
>
>> use correct notation (come on, if you don't want anything to do with
>> phonemes, why do you keep using //?)
>
> Because I expected they might be phonemes, but didn't know yet. I was
> gathering data to make a better judgement. Maybe. Just knowing the
> pronunciation of the words in question would also have been
> interesting.
That's one of the reasons I avoid phonemes whenever possible. It's not
that I don't want to look misinformed, but I don't want to give false
impressions.
>> and the other two have pointed out answers to your question that
>> imply it would be best be posed precisely within the framework
>> you claim to dislike.
>
> So be it. However, I really wouldn't know what such posing would look
> like, other than how I already did it.
That's very well, but I don't think you should shout at people.
António Marques
> Do linguists of Spanish really use phonetic symbols for phonemes, "/ʎ/"
> and "/ʝ/"? Usually one wants something more easily typeable.
At least informally they are happy to resort to familiar orthography,
e.g. /llakeñoza/ for 'llaqueñoza' (I doubt such a word exists, but you
get the picture).
Harlan Messinger
> Ruud Harmsen wrote:
>> Mon, 9 Nov 2009 07:13:51 -0800 (PST): "Peter T. Daniels"
>> <gram...@verizon.net>: in sci.lang:
>>
>>>> Again, how can it make sense to involve phonemics in a stage where the
>>>> phonetics aren't even known?
>>> Until you've identified SAME and DIFFERENT, you don't know where to
>>> look for the details.
>>
>> Nonsense. The details are known already and have been for years. Look
>> at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yeísmo and
>> http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yeísmo
>
> Do linguists of Spanish really use phonetic symbols for phonemes, "/ʎ/"
> and "/ʝ/"? Usually one wants something more easily typeable.
>
> I am hoping that if we ever get an authoritative answer to your "reyes"
> vs. "rayos" question, it will be "Yes, the 'y' in both words is
> pronounced the same, both [ʝ]."
>
> For me, another question is raising its ugly head. I've always assumed
> that unaccented "i" before another vowel represented the same phoneme.
> But according to the article you cite (the en. one, at least), the
> "y"/"ll" one will be [dʒ] or [ɟ͠ʝ] after pause. If the "i" in "hier" for
> example were the same phoneme, then a sentence beginning "Hier ..."
> should sound like [dʒer ...]. I hope that is wrong.
AFAIK, and as far as the Royal Academy's dictionary knows, there is no
Spanish word "hier", so your problem is solved. (It's French.)
Harlan Messinger
> I insist that my questions are crystal clear.
I'm afraid I didn't think they were. Let's look:
Ruud: Initial <y> and originally intervocalic <y> has merged with <ll>,
Harlan: I'd say either that they've merged, or that <ll> has merged with
<y>. To say that <y> has merged with <ll> makes it seem as though you
think that <y> is now pronounced with a palatal [l] rather than that
<ll> has lost it.
Ruud: but final <y> (including final before adding a suffix) is still
distinct everywhere.
Harlan: Distinct from what? The first part of the sentence implies that
you are comparing <y> and <ll> in the same positions; since there is no
final <ll>, there is no basis for comparison with non-final positions,
which made it hard to figure out what your question was.
Ruud: ya, rayos for many speakers would not change their sound if they
were written *lla and *rallos. But <y> in estoy, voy, soy, doy, hay etc.
is always /j/ for all speakers.
Harlan: a) Why are you using phonemic transcription if you're talking
about the way these words are *pronounced*? b) These two sentences don't
go together. The "but" at the beginning of the second sentence makes no
sense because there is nothing in the remainder of that sentence that
contrasts with anything in the first sentence.
Ruud: The word <y> meaning "and" is /i/ between vowels, but in
"cuarenta-y-tres" etc. is always /j/ and never coincides with <ll>.
Harlan: Now you're talking about <y> in its separate use as a vowel,
which is completely outside the context within which it makes any sense
to compare <y> and <ll> at all.
In other words, your original post was all over the map, leaving no
single context within which it was clear what you wanted to know and in
what context it should or could be discussed.
António Marques
> Mon, 09 Nov 2009 13:45:13 +0000: António Marques<m....@sapo.pt>: in
> sci.lang:
>
>> Ruud Harmsen wrote:
>>
>>> Isn't it possible to put all quibbling about phonemics and / / and [
>>> ] aside and simply tell me how certain words are pronounced?
>>
>> No, because the source of your doubts and/or the strange way you've
>> presented them seems to center precisely around the phonemics stuff.
>
> Is it possible to draw conclusions about phonemics before the
> phonetics data have been gathered?
An orthography, the idea that a given 'sound' is 'pronounced' in given
ways, are already phonemics.
> I am actually asking some phonetics questions ("how is this word
> pronounced"), but I am attacked on phonemics conclusions I didn't
> draw, couldn't draw for lack of data, and might not even want to draw!
But your original text had implicit conclusions, that's what was pointed
out. Second, there is a reason linguistic theory is as it is: it's what
people dealing with those questions came up with because it's the
economical and coherent way to look at them.
> How that for methodology?
>
>> It's almost as if you were demanding to know how to solve an equation
>> but didn't want any of that maths stuff.
>
> If the treatment of my questions is an example of linguistics, of a
> scientific approach to languages, then I conclude that science is in
> the way, is an obstacle to simple fact finding.
If you don't want to learn how to drive, you may also come to the
conclusion that vehicles are an obstacle to locomotion.
> So I repeat some of my simple questions:
> Does<y> in Spanish words like "reyes" and "leyes" sound the same as
> in "rayos" and "hallar"?
>
> So far still nobody answered that simple question, instead I got tens
> of unsollicited critiques about the unclear formulation of my
> questions and wrong assumptions about phonemes.
No, you got 2 people telling you that YES, they do sound the same. Those
two people also said they're not natives, so a native may still come up
and dispute it (it's disheartening that one of the resident knowitalls
hasn't yet).
Peter T. Daniels
> Ruud Harmsen wrote:
> > Mon, 9 Nov 2009 07:13:51 -0800 (PST): "Peter T. Daniels"
>
> >>> Again, how can it make sense to involve phonemics in a stage where the
> >>> phonetics aren't even known?
> >> Until you've identified SAME and DIFFERENT, you don't know where to
> >> look for the details.
>
> > Nonsense. The details are known already and have been for years. Look
> > at
> >http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yeísmo and
> >http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yeísmo
>
> Do linguists of Spanish really use phonetic symbols for phonemes, "/ʎ/"
> and "/ʝ/"? Usually one wants something more easily typeable.
>
> I am hoping that if we ever get an authoritative answer to your "reyes"
> vs. "rayos" question, it will be "Yes, the 'y' in both words is
> pronounced the same, both [ʝ]."
>
> For me, another question is raising its ugly head. I've always assumed
> that unaccented "i" before another vowel represented the same phoneme.
> But according to the article you cite (the en. one, at least), the
> "y"/"ll" one will be [dʒ] or [ɟ͠ʝ] after pause. If the "i" in "hier" for
> example were the same phoneme, then a sentence beginning "Hier ..."
> should sound like [dʒer ...]. I hope that is wrong. Even with [ʝ] in
> non-initial position, things like "Diós" would end up sounding more like
> [dʒos] than the [djos] I've always sung.
[dZ] was mentioned in at least one of the survey volumes I looked at
the other day, and I think it said it's confined to a small dialect
area.
BTW I should also have mentioned that I tried Entwistle's volume in
the The Great Languages series and didn't find anything useful.
Ruud Harmsen
sci.lang:
>That's very well, but I don't think you should shout at people.
Did I? I expressed disappointment and frustration, yes. That's not
shouting.
Ruud Harmsen
<hmessinger...@comcast.net>: in sci.lang:
>Ruud Harmsen wrote:
>> I insist that my questions are crystal clear.
>
>I'm afraid I didn't think they were. Let's look:
>
>Ruud: Initial <y> and originally intervocalic <y> has merged with <ll>,
>
>Harlan: I'd say either that they've merged, or that <ll> has merged with
><y>. To say that <y> has merged with <ll> makes it seem as though you
>think that <y> is now pronounced with a palatal [l] rather than that
><ll> has lost it.
That's not what I intended. "Merged" means "both obtained the same
pronunciation", regardless of what that is. Didn't I also say
somewhere that the true palatal l realisation of <ll> is now a
minority pronunciation? That in combination makes it pretty clear. I
may have assumed some basic knowledge about Spanish that wasn't
available among the readership. Of course for people who have hardley
ever heard the language it may be hard to follow.
>Ruud: but final <y> (including final before adding a suffix) is still
>distinct everywhere.
>
>Harlan: Distinct from what?
Distinct from he common realisation of <ll> and other <y>'s.
>The first part of the sentence implies that
>you are comparing <y> and <ll> in the same positions; since there is no
>final <ll>, there is no basis for comparison with non-final positions,
>which made it hard to figure out what your question was.
>
>Ruud: ya, rayos for many speakers would not change their sound if they
>were written *lla and *rallos. But <y> in estoy, voy, soy, doy, hay etc.
>is always /j/ for all speakers.
>
>Harlan: a) Why are you using phonemic transcription if you're talking
>about the way these words are *pronounced*?
1) Whether it's phonemic or not is not relevant at this stage.
2) I'm not using a narrow transcription because the non-[j] sounds
vary a lot, plosive, affricates, fricatives, what have you.
>b) These two sentences don't
>go together. The "but" at the beginning of the second sentence makes no
>sense because there is nothing in the remainder of that sentence that
>contrasts with anything in the first sentence.
>
>Ruud: The word <y> meaning "and" is /i/ between vowels, but in
>"cuarenta-y-tres" etc. is always /j/ and never coincides with <ll>.
>
>Harlan: Now you're talking about <y> in its separate use as a vowel,
>which is completely outside the context within which it makes any sense
>to compare <y> and <ll> at all.
I was trying to be complete about all usages of <y>. In fact I was
looking for relations between spelling and sounds.
>In other words, your original post was all over the map, leaving no
>single context within which it was clear what you wanted to know and in
>what context it should or could be discussed.
It just amazes me that what I wrote, even if badly frased, is so hard
to understand.
As said, I'll go elsewhere to gather data. This is clearly not the
place.
Ruud Harmsen
sci.lang:
>But your original text had implicit conclusions, that's what was pointed
>out. Second, there is a reason linguistic theory is as it is: it's what
>people dealing with those questions came up with because it's the
>economical and coherent way to look at them.
Probably, but the way it is applied here in sci.lang I think isn't
scientific at all. Linguistics itself is probably OK, but sci.lang
isn't sci, isn't about languages (language questions are usually not
answered) and it is ad hominem.
>> So far still nobody answered that simple question, instead I got tens
>> of unsollicited critiques about the unclear formulation of my
>> questions and wrong assumptions about phonemes.
>
>No, you got 2 people telling you that YES, they do sound the same.
One non native and another non-native who you claim said that but
didn't.
Ruud Harmsen
sci.lang:
>For me, another question is raising its ugly head. I've always assumed
>that unaccented "i" before another vowel represented the same phoneme.
Same as what? As what is written as initial and medial <y>? Not is
there's another consonant before it. <siento> is not pronounced as
English s-jee-ento.
>But according to the article you cite (the en. one, at least), the
>"y"/"ll" one will be [d?] or [???] after pause. If the "i" in "hier" for
>example were the same phoneme, then a sentence beginning "Hier ..."
>should sound like [d?er ...]. I hope that is wrong.
Hierba and yerba I learned are alternative spellings for the same
word.
>Even with [?] in
>non-initial position, things like "Di�s" would end up sounding more like
>[d?os] than the [djos] I've always sung.
No. I don't think so, but hope for native confirmation.
>Maybe this is what your quote from the es.wikipedia, "El ye�smo no se
>aplica a los diptongos fon�ticos con /i-/ inicial, tales como los que
>aparecen en las palabras hielo o hierba," was sort of getting at?
Maybe, yes. But then they chose the wrong example, because the h is
mute. It is true in case of non-mute consonants.
Harlan Messinger
> Mon, 09 Nov 2009 14:49:06 -0500: Harlan Messinger
> <hmessinger...@comcast.net>: in sci.lang:
>
>> Ruud Harmsen wrote:
>>> I insist that my questions are crystal clear.
>> I'm afraid I didn't think they were. Let's look:
>>
>> Ruud: Initial <y> and originally intervocalic <y> has merged with <ll>,
>>
>> Harlan: I'd say either that they've merged, or that <ll> has merged with
>> <y>. To say that <y> has merged with <ll> makes it seem as though you
>> think that <y> is now pronounced with a palatal [l] rather than that
>> <ll> has lost it.
>
> That's not what I intended. "Merged" means "both obtained the same
> pronunciation", regardless of what that is. Didn't I also say
> somewhere that the true palatal l realisation of <ll> is now a
> minority pronunciation? That in combination makes it pretty clear.
"Clear" is relative and fleeting. If you clearly say one thing, and then
say something that, when taken on its own, implies the opposite, you are
no longer being clear.
> I
> may have assumed some basic knowledge about Spanish that wasn't
> available among the readership. Of course for people who have hardley
> ever heard the language it may be hard to follow.
>
>> Ruud: but final <y> (including final before adding a suffix) is still
>> distinct everywhere.
>>
>> Harlan: Distinct from what?
>
> Distinct from he common realisation of <ll> and other <y>'s.
>
>> The first part of the sentence implies that
>> you are comparing <y> and <ll> in the same positions; since there is no
>> final <ll>, there is no basis for comparison with non-final positions,
>> which made it hard to figure out what your question was.
>>
>> Ruud: ya, rayos for many speakers would not change their sound if they
>> were written *lla and *rallos. But <y> in estoy, voy, soy, doy, hay etc.
>> is always /j/ for all speakers.
>>
>> Harlan: a) Why are you using phonemic transcription if you're talking
>> about the way these words are *pronounced*?
>
> 1) Whether it's phonemic or not is not relevant at this stage.
If you're talking how people actually say things--if the whole point of
your question is to find out how words are actually *pronounced*, and
whether they are pronounced *the same*, use phonetic transcription.
> 2) I'm not using a narrow transcription because the non-[j] sounds
> vary a lot, plosive, affricates, fricatives, what have you.
>
>> b) These two sentences don't
>> go together. The "but" at the beginning of the second sentence makes no
>> sense because there is nothing in the remainder of that sentence that
>> contrasts with anything in the first sentence.
>>
>> Ruud: The word <y> meaning "and" is /i/ between vowels, but in
>> "cuarenta-y-tres" etc. is always /j/ and never coincides with <ll>.
>>
>> Harlan: Now you're talking about <y> in its separate use as a vowel,
>> which is completely outside the context within which it makes any sense
>> to compare <y> and <ll> at all.
>
> I was trying to be complete about all usages of <y>. In fact I was
> looking for relations between spelling and sounds.
>
>> In other words, your original post was all over the map, leaving no
>> single context within which it was clear what you wanted to know and in
>> what context it should or could be discussed.
>
> It just amazes me that what I wrote, even if badly frased, is so hard
> to understand.
>
> As said, I'll go elsewhere to gather data. This is clearly not the
> place.
You mean Franz's and Hagen's only problem is that they're in the wrong
newsgroups and they'd receive much greater understanding elsewhere?
Ruud: your original message was unclear for all the reasons I spelled out.
DKleinecke
> Mon, 09 Nov 2009 13:45:13 +0000: António Marques <m...@sapo.pt>: in
The answer to your question is NO. The <y> in "rayos" does not sound
the same any two times it is spoken. Of course, that is a useless
answer. Phonemics is the method for decided just which differences do
not matter to the meaning. The meaning - not the pronunciation is the
purpose for human speech.
Ekkehard Dengler
> I think it has been mentioned several times here, and I agree, that
> Spanish speakers who distinguish between <ll> and <y> (<ll> being
> pronounced as a palatal l) still exist, but are now a minority
> worldwide.
>
> For many speakers, in areas of Spain and almost everywhere in the
> Americas, these two have merged. My question is: this is probably not
> true for all positions of <y>?
>
> The rules I can think of are as follows:
>
> Initial <y> and originally intervocalic <y> has merged with <ll>, but
> final <y> (including final before adding a suffix) is still distinct
> everywhere.
>
> ya, rayos for many speakers would not change their sound if they were
> written *lla and *rallos.
>
> But <y> in estoy, voy, soy, doy, hay etc. is always /j/ for all
> speakers.
> "cuarenta-y-tres" etc. is always /j/ and never coincides with <ll>.
>
>
> In words like <rey>, but also the plural <reyes>, <y> is always /j/.
> <Relles> would not sound the same as <reyes>.
> So <rayos> and <reyes> behave differently.
>
> Am I right?
Interesting question. It probably depends. It seems to me that, in varieties
where <ll> is pronounced [j], "reyes" can be a perfect rhyme with "muelles".
I wouldn't expect this to be the case in Argentina, for instance, where both
<ll> and prevocalic <y> are usually pronounced [Z] or [S].
HTH:
http://culturitalia.uibk.ac.at/hispanoteca/Lexikon%20der%20Linguistik/y/YE%C
3%8DSMO.htm
"El que no exista en la gram�tica de los dialectos ze�stas un proceso vivo
de 'rehilamiento' de /y/ se ve en el hecho de que [y] procedente de la
consonantizaci�n de deslizada palatal nunca se pronuncia [z]. Es decir, p.
ej., la frase 'voy a hacerlo' llega a pronunciarse entre ze�stas
[b�-ya-s�r-lo] en el habla r�pida pero nunca se pronuncia *[b�-za-s�r-lo]."
Regards,
Ekkehard
John Atkinson
> Ruud Harmsen wrote:
>> http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yeísmo
>> ===
>> El yeísmo no se aplica a los diptongos fonéticos con /i-/ inicial,
>> tales como los que aparecen en las palabras hielo o hierba.
>> /===
>>
>> So <hierba> and <yerba> are NOT homophones??
>
> Whoever wrote that seems to be making a distinction (poorly) between
> hi-er-ba and yer-ba. Or rather, denying that yerba exists at all (though
> still calling hie- a 'phonetic diphthong', which just has sloppiness
> written all over it).
>
How could anyone deny that <yerba> exists? It's the usual spelling in
Latin America of the word spelled <hierba> in Spain. Unfortunately, I
never got to be offered any yerba mate in Argentina -- only in Chile,
where the phoneme under consideration is always pronounced [j], not [Z]
-- so I can't say whether <yerba> and <hielo> would (either or both)
have [Z] in Argentina, which, as far as I can make out (?), is the point
at issue.
J.
Nathan Sanders
<ecd0b6d1-18ec-4ab4...@x25g2000prf.googlegroups.com>,
DKleinecke <dklei...@gmail.com> wrote:
> The answer to your question is NO. The <y> in "rayos" does not sound
> the same any two times it is spoken.
"Sound the same" to whom? A computer? Then sure, it sounds different
every time. But to a human? There need to be sufficiently large
differences for a distinction to be noticeable, because human
perception is not perfect (especially in a linguistic context, when
our brains are trying very hard to mash everything into neat
categories).
Ruud Harmsen
sci.lang:
>In words like <rey>, but also the plural <reyes>, <y> is always /j/.
><Relles> would not sound the same as <reyes>.
>So <rayos> and <reyes> behave differently.
Reyes (rey-es)
Rayos (rayo-s)
Hoy es ...
Soy un ...
Soy el ...
Hay una ...
Haya (haya)
Morphology!
Ruud Harmsen
<hmessinger...@comcast.net>: in sci.lang:
>>> Harlan: I'd say either that they've merged, or that <ll> has merged with
>>> <y>. To say that <y> has merged with <ll> makes it seem as though you
>>> think that <y> is now pronounced with a palatal [l] rather than that
>>> <ll> has lost it.
>>
>> That's not what I intended. "Merged" means "both obtained the same
>> pronunciation", regardless of what that is. Didn't I also say
>> somewhere that the true palatal l realisation of <ll> is now a
>> minority pronunciation? That in combination makes it pretty clear.
>
>"Clear" is relative and fleeting. If you clearly say one thing, and then
>say something that, when taken on its own, implies the opposite, you are
>no longer being clear.
I admit I could have described my intentions better. Will try to
remember. "Think of the target audience, not of yourself. Will they
think in the same direction as I do when reading what I write here? "
Important to remember. Many people don't. I fell into the same trap
myself now.
Ruud Harmsen
<hmessinger...@comcast.net>: in sci.lang:
>If you're talking how people actually say things--if the whole point of
>your question is to find out how words are actually *pronounced*, and
>whether they are pronounced *the same*, use phonetic transcription.
Yes, I should have. But one possible pronunciation varies a lot in
phonetic details, so that's hard. I could have used Wells' /jj/.
>> As said, I'll go elsewhere to gather data. This is clearly not the
>> place.
>
>You mean Franz's and Hagen's only problem is that they're in the wrong
>newsgroups and they'd receive much greater understanding elsewhere?
I feel a bit like Franz in this thread, yes. (Who is Hagen?)
Ruud Harmsen
<ED...@t-online.de>: in sci.lang:
>http://culturitalia.uibk.ac.at/hispanoteca/Lexikon%20der%20Linguistik/y/YE%C
>3%8DSMO.htm
>"El que no exista en la gram�tica de los dialectos ze�stas un proceso vivo
>de 'rehilamiento' de /y/ se ve en el hecho de que [y] procedente de la
>consonantizaci�n de deslizada palatal nunca se pronuncia [Z].
(Is this sentence complete? Isn't there an �es� missing somewhere? But
never mind.)
>Es decir, p. ej., la frase 'voy a hacerlo' llega a pronunciarse entre ze�stas
>[b�-ya-s�r-lo] en el habla r�pida pero nunca se pronuncia *[b�-Za-s�r-lo]."
�Exactamente!
That's what I mean. The key is morphology. The y is morpheme-final in
the example sentence, so it always remains [j]. Rayo is rayo-s, and
words like haya should probably be interpreted as a single morpheme,
not as hay-a.
Ekkehard Dengler
> Tue, 10 Nov 2009 03:29:34 +0100: "Ekkehard Dengler"
> <ED...@t-online.de>: in sci.lang:
>
>>
http://culturitalia.uibk.ac.at/hispanoteca/Lexikon%20der%20Linguistik/y/YE%C
>> 3%8DSMO.htm
>> "El que no exista en la gram�tica de los dialectos ze�stas un
>> proceso vivo de 'rehilamiento' de /y/ se ve en el hecho de que [y]
>> procedente de la consonantizaci�n de deslizada palatal nunca se
>> pronuncia [Z].
>
> (Is this sentence complete?
Yes, it is.
Regards,
Ekkehard
Ruud Harmsen
<ED...@t-online.de>: in sci.lang:
>Ruud Harmsen wrote:
>> Tue, 10 Nov 2009 03:29:34 +0100: "Ekkehard Dengler"
>> <ED...@t-online.de>: in sci.lang:
>>
>>>
>http://culturitalia.uibk.ac.at/hispanoteca/Lexikon%20der%20Linguistik/y/YE%C
>>> 3%8DSMO.htm
>>> "El que no exista en la gram�tica de los dialectos ze�stas un
>>> proceso vivo de 'rehilamiento' de /y/ se ve en el hecho de que [y]
>>> procedente de la consonantizaci�n de deslizada palatal nunca se
>>> pronuncia [Z].
>>
>> (Is this sentence complete?
>
>Yes, it is.
"Se ve" (one sees) is the subject + "persoonsvorm", right?
Harlan Messinger
The one who pops in occasionally to whine and taunt us into giving a
damn about his theory about the Phaistos Disk.
Ekkehard Dengler
> Tue, 10 Nov 2009 10:32:25 +0100: "Ekkehard Dengler"
> <ED...@t-online.de>: in sci.lang:
>
>> Ruud Harmsen wrote:
>>> Tue, 10 Nov 2009 03:29:34 +0100: "Ekkehard Dengler"
>>> <ED...@t-online.de>: in sci.lang:
>>>
>>>>
>>
http://culturitalia.uibk.ac.at/hispanoteca/Lexikon%20der%20Linguistik/y/YE%C
>>>> 3%8DSMO.htm
>>>> "El que no exista en la gram�tica de los dialectos ze�stas un
>>>> proceso vivo de 'rehilamiento' de /y/ se ve en el hecho de que [y]
>>>> procedente de la consonantizaci�n de deslizada palatal nunca se
>>>> pronuncia [Z].
>>>
>>> (Is this sentence complete?
>>
>> Yes, it is.
>
> "Se ve" (one sees) is the subject + "persoonsvorm", right?
No, the subject is "El [hecho de] que no exista en la gram�tica de los
dialectos ze�stas un proceso vivo de 'rehilamiento' de /y/", with "se" used
reflexively.
Regards,
Ekkehard
Harlan Messinger
I'd been trying to figure that out. It seems very German, as though it
were "el quenoexistaenla...de/y/". Is that common in Spanish? Besides
that, I'm curious about the use of the subjunctive form "exista"--is
that the norm in this kind of construction? I ask because the existence
is factual, not a matter of doubt, desire, counterfactual nature, etc.
Ekkehard Dengler
> Ekkehard Dengler wrote:
>> Ruud Harmsen wrote:
>>> Tue, 10 Nov 2009 10:32:25 +0100: "Ekkehard Dengler"
>>> <ED...@t-online.de>: in sci.lang:
>>>
>>>> Ruud Harmsen wrote:
>>>>> Tue, 10 Nov 2009 03:29:34 +0100: "Ekkehard Dengler"
>>>>> <ED...@t-online.de>: in sci.lang:
>>>>>
>>
http://culturitalia.uibk.ac.at/hispanoteca/Lexikon%20der%20Linguistik/y/YE%C
>>>>>> 3%8DSMO.htm
>>>>>> "El que no exista en la gram�tica de los dialectos ze�stas un
>>>>>> proceso vivo de 'rehilamiento' de /y/ se ve en el hecho de que
>>>>>> [y] procedente de la consonantizaci�n de deslizada palatal nunca
>>>>>> se pronuncia [Z].
>>>>> (Is this sentence complete?
>>>> Yes, it is.
>>> "Se ve" (one sees) is the subject + "persoonsvorm", right?
>>
>> No, the subject is "El [hecho de] que no exista en la gram�tica de
>> los dialectos ze�stas un proceso vivo de 'rehilamiento' de /y/",
>> with "se" used reflexively.
>
> I'd been trying to figure that out. It seems very German, as though it
> were "el quenoexistaenla...de/y/". Is that common in Spanish?
I'm not sure I understand your question, but what I can tell you is that the
sentence sounds unremarkable to me and that Juan Zamora Munn� is Cuban.
> Besides
> that, I'm curious about the use of the subjunctive form "exista"--is
> that the norm in this kind of construction?
Yes.
> I ask because the
> existence is factual, not a matter of doubt, desire, counterfactual
> nature, etc.
I'm afraid I have no explanation. I can't explain "el hecho de que nunca se
pronuncia", either, I just happen to know that that's how you say it.
Regards,
Ekkehard
Ekkehard Dengler
Harlan Messinger
The entirety of "que no exista ... de /y/" is treated like a noun and
takes the article "el". Your shortcut to explaining it was to stick a
nonexistent "hecho de" in there.
Ekkehard Dengler
Yes, but the ellipsis has no equivalent in German, as far as I can tell.
*"Die [Tatsache], dass" is just as ungrammatical as *"the [fact] that".
Regards,
Ekkehard
Peter T. Daniels
> Mon, 09 Nov 2009 20:05:44 -0500: Harlan Messinger
>
> >If you're talking how people actually say things--if the whole point of
> >your question is to find out how words are actually *pronounced*, and
> >whether they are pronounced *the same*, use phonetic transcription.
>
> Yes, I should have. But one possible pronunciation varies a lot in
> phonetic details, so that's hard. I could have used Wells' /jj/.
If it's "one possible pronunciation," then it doesn't "var[y] a lot in
phonetic details."
What is "Wells' /jj/," what does it have to do with Spanish, and WHY
IS IT IN PHONEME SLANTS?
Or maybe by "one possible pronunciation," you meant 'one possible
phonemicization'.
Harlan Messinger
I was thinking of sentences like--I'm not sure this one is correctly
formed, but it evokes examples I've seen--"Der gestern mit jener Frau
tanzende Mann" = "The man who was dancing yesterday with that woman".
It's not exactly like the Spanish construction, but the Spanish
construction reminds me of it.
Ruud Harmsen
<gram...@verizon.net>: in sci.lang:
>On Nov 10, 3:59�am, Ruud Harmsen <r...@rudhar.eu> wrote:
>> Mon, 09 Nov 2009 20:05:44 -0500: Harlan Messinger
>> <hmessinger.removet...@comcast.net>: in sci.lang:
>>
>> >If you're talking how people actually say things--if the whole point of
>> >your question is to find out how words are actually *pronounced*, and
>> >whether they are pronounced *the same*, use phonetic transcription.
>>
>> Yes, I should have. But one possible pronunciation varies a lot in
>> phonetic details, so that's hard. I could have used Wells' /jj/.
>
>If it's "one possible pronunciation," then it doesn't "var[y] a lot in
>phonetic details."
You're free to have that opinion, but the fact is that it does. See
the book that Ekkehard linked to elsewhere in this thread,
http://tinyurl.com/yfwevh6 , pages 138 thru 140. What I see there is
more variation than I could ever have imagined.
>What is "Wells' /jj/," what does it have to do with Spanish, and WHY
>IS IT IN PHONEME SLANTS?
See Wells, ask Wells (well, he retired, so ask someone else there).
The link has been given before:
http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/sampa/spanish.htm
>Or maybe by "one possible pronunciation," you meant 'one possible
>phonemicization'.
Later perhaps, but I hadn't arrived at that stage yet, as I was still
gathering data, before hoping to one day analyse it.
Peter T. Daniels
> Tue, 10 Nov 2009 06:03:58 -0800 (PST): "Peter T. Daniels"
>
> >On Nov 10, 3:59 am, Ruud Harmsen <r...@rudhar.eu> wrote:
> >> Mon, 09 Nov 2009 20:05:44 -0500: Harlan Messinger
> >> <hmessinger.removet...@comcast.net>: in sci.lang:
>
> >> >If you're talking how people actually say things--if the whole point of
> >> >your question is to find out how words are actually *pronounced*, and
> >> >whether they are pronounced *the same*, use phonetic transcription.
>
> >> Yes, I should have. But one possible pronunciation varies a lot in
> >> phonetic details, so that's hard. I could have used Wells' /jj/.
>
> >If it's "one possible pronunciation," then it doesn't "var[y] a lot in
> >phonetic details."
>
> You're free to have that opinion, but the fact is that it does. See
> more variation than I could ever have imagined.
Do you have trouble with the concept "one"? I have no doubt that it
"varies a lot in phonetic details." So how can you possibly say that
it is "one possible pronunciation"?
> >What is "Wells' /jj/," what does it have to do with Spanish, and WHY
> >IS IT IN PHONEME SLANTS?
>
> See Wells, ask Wells (well, he retired, so ask someone else there).
> The link has been given before:http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/sampa/spanish.htm
You're talking about John Wells, the expert on the pronunciation of
English?
Has he performed a phonemic analysis of Spanish?
HA!!!! You're a damn liar!!!!!!!!!!! It is NOT in slants. It's some
sort of ASCII representation of Spanish phonetics, dating to 1996. For
a few of the items, a phonemicization is given, at the right.
> >Or maybe by "one possible pronunciation," you meant 'one possible
> >phonemicization'.
>
> Later perhaps, but I hadn't arrived at that stage yet, as I was still
> gathering data, before hoping to one day analyse it.
Then _what do you mean by "one possible pronunciation"_????????
Ruud Harmsen
<gram...@verizon.net>: in sci.lang:
>> >> Yes, I should have. But one possible pronunciation varies a lot in
>> >> phonetic details, so that's hard. I could have used Wells' /jj/.
>>
>> >If it's "one possible pronunciation," then it doesn't "var[y] a lot in
>> >phonetic details."
>>
>> You're free to have that opinion, but the fact is that it does. See
>> the book that Ekkehard linked to elsewhere in this thread,http://tinyurl.com/yfwevh6, pages 138 thru 140. What I see there is
>> more variation than I could ever have imagined.
>
>Do you have trouble with the concept "one"? I have no doubt that it
>"varies a lot in phonetic details." So how can you possibly say that
>it is "one possible pronunciation".
If you knew a little bit about Spanish and had read up on ye�smo
(http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ye�smo is a good starting point), you'd
know.
>> >What is "Wells' /jj/," what does it have to do with Spanish, and WHY
>> >IS IT IN PHONEME SLANTS?
>>
>> See Wells, ask Wells (well, he retired, so ask someone else there).
>> The link has been given before:http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/sampa/spanish.htm
>
>You're talking about John Wells, the expert on the pronunciation of
>English?
I am, yes sir. He invented (X)Sampa, among many other activities.
>Has he performed a phonemic analysis of Spanish?
Some of his people probably has. There are many pages about many
languages, see http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/sampa/ which has
clickable links per language.
>HA!!!! You're a damn liar!!!!!!!!!!! It is NOT in slants. It's some
>sort of ASCII representation of Spanish phonetics, dating to 1996. For
>a few of the items, a phonemicization is given, at the right.
You're right, good point. The phonemic status of these language charts
is unclear. I asked Mr. Wells about that in e-mails many years ago,
but didn't receive a clear answer. I won't ask him again, because I am
no longer on speaking terms with him, due to his stubbourn refusal to
correct (of have it corrected by somebody else) the obvious error in
http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/sampa/portug.htm : t�m should be tem.
>> >Or maybe by "one possible pronunciation," you meant 'one possible
>> >phonemicization'.
>>
>> Later perhaps, but I hadn't arrived at that stage yet, as I was still
>> gathering data, before hoping to one day analyse it.
>
>Then _what do you mean by "one possible pronunciation"_????????
Read up on Spanish and ye�smo.
One is a palatal l for <ll>, the other "one" is all the others, some
of which coincide or have merged with those for <y> (except whenn
morpheme final).
Peter T. Daniels
> Tue, 10 Nov 2009 07:26:58 -0800 (PST): "Peter T. Daniels"
>
> >> >> Yes, I should have. But one possible pronunciation varies a lot in
> >> >> phonetic details, so that's hard. I could have used Wells' /jj/.
>
> >> >If it's "one possible pronunciation," then it doesn't "var[y] a lot in
> >> >phonetic details."
>
> >> You're free to have that opinion, but the fact is that it does. See
> >> the book that Ekkehard linked to elsewhere in this thread,http://tinyurl.com/yfwevh6, pages 138 thru 140. What I see there is
> >> more variation than I could ever have imagined.
>
> >Do you have trouble with the concept "one"? I have no doubt that it
> >"varies a lot in phonetic details." So how can you possibly say that
> >it is "one possible pronunciation".
>
> (http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yeísmo is a good starting point), you'd
> know.
>
> >> >What is "Wells' /jj/," what does it have to do with Spanish, and WHY
> >> >IS IT IN PHONEME SLANTS?
>
> >> See Wells, ask Wells (well, he retired, so ask someone else there).
> >> The link has been given before:http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/sampa/spanish.htm
>
> >You're talking about John Wells, the expert on the pronunciation of
> >English?
>
> I am, yes sir. He invented (X)Sampa, among many other activities.
>
> >Has he performed a phonemic analysis of Spanish?
>
> Some of his people probably has. There are many pages about many
> clickable links per language.
>
> >HA!!!! You're a damn liar!!!!!!!!!!! It is NOT in slants. It's some
> >sort of ASCII representation of Spanish phonetics, dating to 1996. For
> >a few of the items, a phonemicization is given, at the right.
>
> You're right, good point. The phonemic status of these language charts
> is unclear. I asked Mr. Wells about that in e-mails many years ago,
> but didn't receive a clear answer. I won't ask him again, because I am
> no longer on speaking terms with him, due to his stubbourn refusal to
>
> >> >Or maybe by "one possible pronunciation," you meant 'one possible
> >> >phonemicization'.
>
> >> Later perhaps, but I hadn't arrived at that stage yet, as I was still
> >> gathering data, before hoping to one day analyse it.
>
> >Then _what do you mean by "one possible pronunciation"_????????
>
>
> One is a palatal l for <ll>, the other "one" is all the others, some
> of which coincide or have merged with those for <y> (except whenn
> morpheme final).
And you get upset when people tell you you aren't clear?
How could _anyone_ be expected to know that what you meant by "one"
was 'many', among which you favor one?
It has nothing to do with knowledge of Spanish.
Bart Mathias
> Bart Mathias wrote:
>> Ruud Harmsen wrote:
>>> Mon, 9 Nov 2009 07:13:51 -0800 (PST): "Peter T. Daniels"
>>> <gram...@verizon.net>: in sci.lang:
>>>
>>>>> Again, how can it make sense to involve phonemics in a stage where the
>>>>> phonetics aren't even known?
>>>> Until you've identified SAME and DIFFERENT, you don't know where to
>>>> look for the details.
>>>
>>> Nonsense. The details are known already and have been for years. Look
>>> at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yeísmo and
>>> http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yeísmo
>>
>> Do linguists of Spanish really use phonetic symbols for phonemes,
>> "/ʎ/" and "/ʝ/"? Usually one wants something more easily typeable.
>>
>> I am hoping that if we ever get an authoritative answer to your
>> "reyes" vs. "rayos" question, it will be "Yes, the 'y' in both words
>> is pronounced the same, both [ʝ]."
>>
>> For me, another question is raising its ugly head. I've always assumed
>> that unaccented "i" before another vowel represented the same phoneme.
>
> AFAIK, and as far as the Royal Academy's dictionary knows, there is no
> Spanish word "hier", so your problem is solved. (It's French.)
OK, it's really, really nice to have that problem solved. Now what about
"hiedra," "hiel," "hierba," etc. Or "ciudad," "tiene," etc., for that
matter.
I guess the obvious and easy answer is that there is a [j] (distinct
from [ʝ] = /ʎ/ and/or /ʝ/) occuring as an allophone of /i/. But I bet
it's unusual to have one phoneme sometimes realized as a vowel and
sometimes as a glide. (Or am I worng yet once again?)
Peter T. Daniels
> I guess the obvious and easy answer is that there is a [j] (distinct
> from [ʝ] = /ʎ/ and/or /ʝ/) occuring as an allophone of /i/. But I bet
> it's unusual to have one phoneme sometimes realized as a vowel and
> sometimes as a glide. (Or am I worng yet once again?)-
No need to analyze Latin as having distinct glide phonemes -- they're
just intervocalic vowels.
Bart Mathias
There still remains a possibility that it's juncture--spaces between
words--that matters, I think. The [y] (American phonetics for [j]; why?)
in [b�-ya-s�r-lo] could conceivably preserve juncture. We still need
someone to tell us whether "rayos," "reyes," "haya," etc., where there
are only morpheme boundaries, not junctures, are ever ['raZos],
['reZes], ['aZa], etc.
António Marques
<hmessinger.removet...@comcast.net> wrote:
> Ekkehard Dengler wrote:
> > Harlan Messinger wrote:
> >> Ekkehard Dengler wrote:
> >>> Harlan Messinger wrote:
> >>>> Ekkehard Dengler wrote:
> >>>>> Ruud Harmsen wrote:
> >>>>>> Tue, 10 Nov 2009 10:32:25 +0100: "Ekkehard Dengler"
> >>>>>> <ED...@t-online.de>: in sci.lang:
>
> >>>>>>> Ruud Harmsen wrote:
> >>>>>>>> Tue, 10 Nov 2009 03:29:34 +0100: "Ekkehard Dengler"
> >>>>>>>> <ED...@t-online.de>: in sci.lang:
>
> >>>>>>>>> 3%8DSMO.htm
> >>>>>>>>> "El que no exista en la gramática de los dialectos zeístas un
> >>>>>>>>> proceso vivo de 'rehilamiento' de /y/ se ve en el hecho de que
> >>>>>>>>> nunca se pronuncia [Z].
> >>>>>>>> (Is this sentence complete?
> >>>>>>> Yes, it is.
> >>>>>> "Se ve" (one sees) is the subject + "persoonsvorm", right?
> >>>>> los dialectos zeístas un proceso vivo de 'rehilamiento' de /y/",
> >>>>> with "se" used reflexively.
> >>>> I'd been trying to figure that out. It seems very German, as though
> >>>> it were "el quenoexistaenla...de/y/". Is that common in Spanish?
> >>> I'm not sure I understand your question, but what I can tell you is
> >>> that the sentence sounds unremarkable to me and that Juan Zamora
> >> The entirety of "que no exista ... de /y/" is treated like a noun and
> >> takes the article "el". Your shortcut to explaining it was to stick a
> >> nonexistent "hecho de" in there.
>
> > Yes, but the ellipsis has no equivalent in German, as far as I can tell.
> > *"Die [Tatsache], dass" is just as ungrammatical as *"the [fact] that".
>
> I was thinking of sentences like--I'm not sure this one is correctly
> formed, but it evokes examples I've seen--"Der gestern mit jener Frau
> tanzende Mann" = "The man who was dancing yesterday with that woman".
> It's not exactly like the Spanish construction, but the Spanish
> construction reminds me of it.
Portuguese has something that feels like the spanish to me, only it
doesn't have the article and the mood isn't shifted: "Que não existe
na gramática dos dialectos (...) de /y/ vê-se (...)". If you mean the
subjunctive, you use the subjunctive: "Que não exista na gramática dos
dialectos (...) de /y/ é discutível (...)".
António Marques
> Tue, 10 Nov 2009 03:29:34 +0100: "Ekkehard Dengler"
> <ED...@t-online.de>: in sci.lang:
>
> >3%8DSMO.htm
> >"El que no exista en la gramática de los dialectos zeístas un proceso vivo
> >de 'rehilamiento' de /y/ se ve en el hecho de que [y] procedente de la
>
> (Is this sentence complete? Isn't there an «es» missing somewhere? But
> never mind.)
>
> >[bó-ya-sér-lo] en el habla rápida pero nunca se pronuncia *[bó-Za-sér-lo]."
>
> ¡Exactamente!
>
> That's what I mean. The key is morphology. The y is morpheme-final in
> the example sentence, so it always remains [j]. Rayo is rayo-s, and
> words like haya should probably be interpreted as a single morpheme,
> not as hay-a.
No.
If you follow Ekkehard's link, you'll see that the part he quotes
refers to 'z^eist' dialects, meaning those that pronounce one or two
of those phonemes as [dZ], regardless of whether they merge them or
not. Some of *those* that do still pronounce -y as [j] rather than
[dZ], but that has to do with -y being word final, not morpheme final;
afaik reyes and relles are homophones in Argentina.
Sounds need not behave the same way across word boundaries that they
do inside. For instance, in some romance languages, latin _et_ 'and'
before vowel-inital words had its t behave as if in medial position
between vowels; in others it did not. There is no rule that says that
'vaya' has to behave as 'vay a'.
António Marques
> Mon, 09 Nov 2009 20:01:15 +0000: António Marques <m...@sapo.pt>: in
> sci.lang:
>
> >But your original text had implicit conclusions, that's what was pointed
> >out. Second, there is a reason linguistic theory is as it is: it's what
> >people dealing with those questions came up with because it's the
> >economical and coherent way to look at them.
>
> Probably, but the way it is applied here in sci.lang I think isn't
> scientific at all. Linguistics itself is probably OK, but sci.lang
> isn't sci, isn't about languages (language questions are usually not
> answered) and it is ad hominem.
What do you mean, 'language questions are usually not answered'? You
make it sound as if people had the answer to every possible question
but choose to withhold it. And this isn't sci.polyglot.
> >> So far still nobody answered that simple question, instead I got tens
> >> of unsollicited critiques about the unclear formulation of my
> >> questions and wrong assumptions about phonemes.
>
> >No, you got 2 people telling you that YES, they do sound the same.
>
> One non native and another non-native who you claim said that but
> didn't.
You must make a choice. Either you chide us for our non-nativeness -
to which we've called attention -, or for not having addressed the
issue - which we did. Not both. (John said he didn't think you were
right - as in being almost sure you were not - in your presumption
that reyes was different from rayos. That's at least an attempt at
answering which I don't think he should be scolded for.)
You may also ask google for all of those spanish-speaking sites where
people write 'relles' for 'reyes'.
Harlan Messinger
> On Nov 10, 2:27 pm, Harlan Messinger
> <hmessinger.removet...@comcast.net> wrote:
>> Ekkehard Dengler wrote:
>>> Harlan Messinger wrote:
>>>> Ekkehard Dengler wrote:
>>>>> Harlan Messinger wrote:
>>>>>> Ekkehard Dengler wrote:
>>>>>>> Ruud Harmsen wrote:
>>>>>>>> Tue, 10 Nov 2009 10:32:25 +0100: "Ekkehard Dengler"
>>>>>>>> <ED...@t-online.de>: in sci.lang:
>>>>>>>>> Ruud Harmsen wrote:
>>>>>>>>>> Tue, 10 Nov 2009 03:29:34 +0100: "Ekkehard Dengler"
>>>>>>>>>> <ED...@t-online.de>: in sci.lang:
>>> http://culturitalia.uibk.ac.at/hispanoteca/Lexikon%20der%20Linguistik...
>>>>>>>>>>> 3%8DSMO.htm
>>>>>>>>>>> proceso vivo de 'rehilamiento' de /y/ se ve en el hecho de que
>>>>>>>>>>> nunca se pronuncia [Z].
>>>>>>>>>> (Is this sentence complete?
>>>>>>>>> Yes, it is.
>>>>>>>> "Se ve" (one sees) is the subject + "persoonsvorm", right?
>>>>>>> los dialectos ze�stas un proceso vivo de 'rehilamiento' de /y/",
>>>>>>> with "se" used reflexively.
>>>>>> I'd been trying to figure that out. It seems very German, as though
>>>>>> it were "el quenoexistaenla...de/y/". Is that common in Spanish?
>>>>> I'm not sure I understand your question, but what I can tell you is
>>>>> that the sentence sounds unremarkable to me and that Juan Zamora
>>>> The entirety of "que no exista ... de /y/" is treated like a noun and
>>>> takes the article "el". Your shortcut to explaining it was to stick a
>>>> nonexistent "hecho de" in there.
>>> Yes, but the ellipsis has no equivalent in German, as far as I can tell.
>>> *"Die [Tatsache], dass" is just as ungrammatical as *"the [fact] that".
>> I was thinking of sentences like--I'm not sure this one is correctly
>> formed, but it evokes examples I've seen--"Der gestern mit jener Frau
>> tanzende Mann" = "The man who was dancing yesterday with that woman".
>> It's not exactly like the Spanish construction, but the Spanish
>> construction reminds me of it.
>
> Portuguese has something that feels like the spanish to me, only it
> na gram�tica dos dialectos (...) de /y/ v�-se (...)". If you mean the
> subjunctive, you use the subjunctive: "Que n�o exista na gram�tica dos
> dialectos (...) de /y/ � discut�vel (...)".
That makes sense to me, and seems familiar to me. It was the insertion
of the article "el" in front of the whole thing that was unfamiliar.
DKleinecke
> In article
> <ecd0b6d1-18ec-4ab4-8ac6-04ffc2b46...@x25g2000prf.googlegroups.com>,
>
> DKleinecke <dkleine...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > The answer to your question is NO. The <y> in "rayos" does not sound
> > the same any two times it is spoken.
>
> "Sound the same" to whom? A computer? Then sure, it sounds different
> every time. But to a human? There need to be sufficiently large
> differences for a distinction to be noticeable, because human
> perception is not perfect (especially in a linguistic context, when
> our brains are trying very hard to mash everything into neat
> categories).
>
> Nathan
>
> --
> Nathan Sanders
> Linguistics Program
> Williams Collegehttp://wso.williams.edu/~nsanders/
The question was about "sound the same". It was not about "are
preceived as the same". We know the human auditory system is not
perfect. What we are unsure about is what imperfections matter and
what do not. The situation is under study in two sub-fields of
linguistics - phonology and phonemics. Phonology is (or at least used
to be) more oriented towards the process of audition and phonemics is
more oriented toward how the outcomes of audition are related to
communcation. I was attempting to deprecate the idea that one could
discuss speech sounds meaningfully without making any attempt to use
phonemics.
António Marques
<hmessinger.removet...@comcast.net> wrote:
> António Marques wrote:
> > On Nov 10, 2:27 pm, Harlan Messinger
> > <hmessinger.removet...@comcast.net> wrote:
> >> Ekkehard Dengler wrote:
> >>> Harlan Messinger wrote:
> >>>> Ekkehard Dengler wrote:
> >>>>> Harlan Messinger wrote:
> >>>>>> Ekkehard Dengler wrote:
> >>>>>>> Ruud Harmsen wrote:
> >>>>>>>> Tue, 10 Nov 2009 10:32:25 +0100: "Ekkehard Dengler"
> >>>>>>>> <ED...@t-online.de>: in sci.lang:
> >>>>>>>>> Ruud Harmsen wrote:
> >>>>>>>>>> Tue, 10 Nov 2009 03:29:34 +0100: "Ekkehard Dengler"
> >>>>>>>>>> <ED...@t-online.de>: in sci.lang:
> >>>http://culturitalia.uibk.ac.at/hispanoteca/Lexikon%20der%20Linguistik...
> >>>>>>>>>>> 3%8DSMO.htm
> >>>>>>>>>>> proceso vivo de 'rehilamiento' de /y/ se ve en el hecho de que
> >>>>>>>>>>> nunca se pronuncia [Z].
> >>>>>>>>>> (Is this sentence complete?
> >>>>>>>>> Yes, it is.
> >>>>>>>> "Se ve" (one sees) is the subject + "persoonsvorm", right?
> >>>>>>> los dialectos zeístas un proceso vivo de 'rehilamiento' de /y/",
> >>>>>>> with "se" used reflexively.
> >>>>>> I'd been trying to figure that out. It seems very German, as though
> >>>>>> it were "el quenoexistaenla...de/y/". Is that common in Spanish?
> >>>>> I'm not sure I understand your question, but what I can tell you is
> >>>>> that the sentence sounds unremarkable to me and that Juan Zamora
> >>>> The entirety of "que no exista ... de /y/" is treated like a noun and
> >>>> takes the article "el". Your shortcut to explaining it was to stick a
> >>>> nonexistent "hecho de" in there.
> >>> Yes, but the ellipsis has no equivalent in German, as far as I can tell.
> >>> *"Die [Tatsache], dass" is just as ungrammatical as *"the [fact] that".
> >> I was thinking of sentences like--I'm not sure this one is correctly
> >> formed, but it evokes examples I've seen--"Der gestern mit jener Frau
> >> tanzende Mann" = "The man who was dancing yesterday with that woman".
> >> It's not exactly like the Spanish construction, but the Spanish
> >> construction reminds me of it.
>
> > Portuguese has something that feels like the spanish to me, only it
> > na gramática dos dialectos (...) de /y/ vê-se (...)". If you mean the
> > subjunctive, you use the subjunctive: "Que não exista na gramática dos
> > dialectos (...) de /y/ é discutível (...)".
>
> That makes sense to me, and seems familiar to me. It was the insertion
> of the article "el" in front of the whole thing that was unfamiliar.
If we didn't have this construction, we'd probably have to use an
analogue to the spanish one, i.e. 'O (que não exista...) vê-se...',
and I can see how the subjunctive would be mandatory. Of course, we do
have a similar one without 'que': 'O (não existir ...) vê-se ...' (it
uses the personal infinitive, cf. 'o (não terem ido lá) verificou-se
(ser um erro)' = 'their not having gone there proved a mistake').
António Marques
> The question was about "sound the same". It was not about "are
> preceived as the same".
But unqualified 'sound the same' does mean 'are heard as the same',
iinm - and as we all know, that's not an unimportant part of the whole
phonemics thing. Whereas you meant to say 'have different sounds'.
Nathan Sanders
<f5b8196f-57b1-4ae7...@j9g2000prh.googlegroups.com>,
DKleinecke <dklei...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Nov 9, 7:01�pm, Nathan Sanders <nsand...@williams.edu> wrote:
> > In article
> > <ecd0b6d1-18ec-4ab4-8ac6-04ffc2b46...@x25g2000prf.googlegroups.com>,
> >
> > �DKleinecke <dkleine...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > > The answer to your question is NO. �The <y> in "rayos" does not sound
> > > the same any two times it is spoken.
> >
> > "Sound the same" to whom? �A computer? �Then sure, it sounds different
> > every time. �But to a human? �There need to be sufficiently large
> > differences for a distinction to be noticeable, because human
> > perception is not perfect (especially in a linguistic context, when
> > our brains are trying very hard to mash everything into neat
> > categories).
>
> The question was about "sound the same". It was not about "are
> preceived as the same".
Due to the nature of the physical universe, no two sounds could ever
"sound the same"! Hit a key on a piano, then hit it again; there will
still be measurable differences between the two sounds. Obviously,
this interpretation of "sound the same" isn't very useful, but it is
the one suggested by your statement "The <y> in 'rayos' does not sound
the same any two times it is spoken."
Do you think there's something in between this useless "sound the
same" and "perceived to be the same"? I.e., some way in which sounds
can be reliably called "same" and "different" that doesn't just
correspond to perception and doesn't reduce to the trivial way that
all sounds are different?
> We know the human auditory system is not
> perfect. What we are unsure about is what imperfections matter and
> what do not.
I'm not sure why you say "unsure". As a phonologist, I can tell you
that we are quite sure of what many of the differences are that
matter. For example, every difference that exists in any language is
obviously a difference that matters. While we obviously haven't
catalogued every difference in every language, we have catalogued
enough that we have a very good idea of what the main possible
patterns are.
> The situation is under study in two sub-fields of
> linguistics - phonology and phonemics. Phonology is (or at least used
> to be) more oriented towards the process of audition and phonemics is
> more oriented toward how the outcomes of audition are related to
> communcation.
I'm not sure where you got that, but it's not correct.
Phonology is the study of patterns of sounds in and across languages.
Among other things, this covers which sounds languages make use of
(phonemics) and how sounds can be combined with each other
(phonotactics).
Phonetics is the study of the physical properties of speech sounds:
how they are made (articulatory phonetics), what their sound waves are
like (acoustic phonetics), and how they are perceived (auditory
phonetics).
Peter T. Daniels
> DKleinecke <dkleine...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > The situation is under study in two sub-fields of
> > linguistics - phonology and phonemics. Phonology is (or at least used
> > to be) more oriented towards the process of audition and phonemics is
> > more oriented toward how the outcomes of audition are related to
> > communcation.
>
> I'm not sure where you got that, but it's not correct.
>
> Phonology is the study of patterns of sounds in and across languages.
> Among other things, this covers which sounds languages make use of
> (phonemics) and how sounds can be combined with each other
> (phonotactics).
>
> Phonetics is the study of the physical properties of speech sounds:
> how they are made (articulatory phonetics), what their sound waves are
> like (acoustic phonetics), and how they are perceived (auditory
> phonetics).
(He said phonemics, not phonetics.)
At Cornell in 1970, Jim Gair's course was called "Phonology," not
"Phonemics," and it covered neither Jakobson & Halle nor Chomsky &
Halle.
Nathan Sanders
<cbc59259-15ec-4256...@h2g2000vbd.googlegroups.com>,
"Peter T. Daniels" <gram...@verizon.net> wrote:
> On Nov 10, 11:10�pm, Nathan Sanders <nsand...@williams.edu> wrote:
> > In article
> > <f5b8196f-57b1-4ae7-8dcd-d704a945a...@j9g2000prh.googlegroups.com>,
> > �DKleinecke <dkleine...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > > The situation is under study in two sub-fields of
> > > linguistics - phonology and phonemics. Phonology is (or at least used
> > > to be) more oriented towards the �process of audition and phonemics is
> > > more oriented toward how the outcomes of audition are related to
> > > communcation.
> >
> > I'm not sure where you got that, but it's not correct.
> >
> > Phonology is the study of patterns of sounds in and across languages. �
> > Among other things, this covers which sounds languages make use of
> > (phonemics) and how sounds can be combined with each other
> > (phonotactics).
> >
> > Phonetics is the study of the physical properties of speech sounds:
> > how they are made (articulatory phonetics), what their sound waves are
> > like (acoustic phonetics), and how they are perceived (auditory
> > phonetics).
>
> (He said phonemics, not phonetics.)
Yes. I was correcting his claims that (a) phonemics and phonology are
different fields (one is a sub-field of the other), and (b) audition
has anything to do with either (it's part of phonetics, not phonology).
Of course, things aren't quite as clear-cut as I've laid them out
here. Much work (including my own) has been done at the
phonetics-phonology interface, blurring the lines between the two
fields.
> At Cornell in 1970, Jim Gair's course was called "Phonology," not
> "Phonemics," and it covered neither Jakobson & Halle nor Chomsky &
> Halle.
I began the relevant sentence with "Among other things" for a reason!
Ruud Harmsen
<gram...@verizon.net>: in sci.lang:
>> >> >Or maybe by "one possible pronunciation," you meant 'one possible
>> >> >phonemicization'.
>>
>> >> Later perhaps, but I hadn't arrived at that stage yet, as I was still
>> >> gathering data, before hoping to one day analyse it.
>>
>> >Then _what do you mean by "one possible pronunciation"_????????
>>
>> Read up on Spanish and ye�smo.
>>
>> One is a palatal l for <ll>, the other "one" is all the others, some
>> of which coincide or have merged with those for <y> (except whenn
>> morpheme final).
>
>And you get upset when people tell you you aren't clear?
>
>How could _anyone_ be expected to know that what you meant by "one"
>was 'many', among which you favor one?
>
>It has nothing to do with knowledge of Spanish.
For someone who knows about Spanish pronunciation is is easier to
understand my admittedly unclear descriptions.
Ruud Harmsen
<ent...@gmail.com>: in sci.lang:
>You may also ask google for all of those spanish-speaking sites where
>people write 'relles' for 'reyes'.
Good idea, why didn't I think of that before?
Relles seems to a surname. Separate or connected to Reyes?
Here's a nice example of a misspelling:
http://gimena19bmx.blogspot.com/2009/01/regalo-de-relles-magos.html
"regalo de relles majos" and "los relles majos".
"y nos habian dejado un super regalo de relles. valla con el super
regalo."
Ruud Harmsen
>Tue, 10 Nov 2009 14:46:26 -0800 (PST): Ant�nio Marques: in sci.lang:
>>You may also ask google for all of those spanish-speaking sites where
>>people write 'relles' for 'reyes'.
Wed, 11 Nov 2009 09:41:52 +0100: Ruud Harmsen:
>Here's a nice example of a misspelling:
>http://gimena19bmx.blogspot.com/2009/01/regalo-de-relles-magos.html
>"regalo de relles majos" and "los relles majos".
>"y nos habian dejado un super regalo de relles. valla con el super
>regalo."
http://nicolececilia.blogspot.com/2007/01/reyes-magos-book-release-farewell-party.html
"los relles traen llerba?"
Ekkehard Dengler
> Tue, 10 Nov 2009 14:46:26 -0800 (PST): Ant�nio Marques
> <ent...@gmail.com>: in sci.lang:
>> You may also ask google for all of those spanish-speaking sites where
>> people write 'relles' for 'reyes'.
>
> Good idea, why didn't I think of that before?
>
> Relles seems to a surname. Separate or connected to Reyes?
>
> Here's a nice example of a misspelling:
> http://gimena19bmx.blogspot.com/2009/01/regalo-de-relles-magos.html
> "regalo de relles majos" and "los relles majos".
You'll get even more results if you Google "relles magos".
Regards,
Ekkehard