There are 12 messages in this issue.
Topics in this digest:
1a. Re: "Even if"
From: David McCann
1b. Re: Fwd: "Even if"
From: H. S. Teoh
1c. Re: Fwd: "Even if"
From: Padraic Brown
1d. Re: Fwd: "Even if"
From: H. S. Teoh
2a. Re: Rolling your R's
From: H. S. Teoh
2b. Re: Rolling your R's
From: George Corley
2c. Re: Rolling your R's
From: C. Brickner
2d. Re: Rolling your R's
From: H. S. Teoh
2e. Re: Rolling your R's
From: Garth Wallace
2f. Re: Rolling your R's
From: R A Brown
2g. Re: Rolling your R's
From: Leonardo Castro
2h. Re: Rolling your R's
From: H. S. Teoh
Messages
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1a. Re: "Even if"
Posted by: "David McCann" da...@polymathy.plus.com
Date: Fri Jul 19, 2013 8:08 am ((PDT))
On Thu, 18 Jul 2013 11:29:36 -0700
"H. S. Teoh" <hst...@quickfur.ath.cx> wrote:
> What's the linguistic term for conjunctions like "even if", or "be it
> that ..."?
A scalar concessive conditional, as distinct from an alternative
concessive conditional (whether … or …).
Messages in this topic (7)
________________________________________________________________________
1b. Re: Fwd: "Even if"
Posted by: "H. S. Teoh" hst...@quickfur.ath.cx
Date: Fri Jul 19, 2013 11:54 am ((PDT))
On Fri, Jul 19, 2013 at 10:34:09AM +0200, Lisa Weißbach wrote:
> Hi!
>
> I don't know if my email made it to the list - I tried sending it
> twice a few hours ago but didn't receive it, so I have to conclude
> that I made some kind of mistake. First time poster blues... I hope
> you don't mind me trying to send it to you privately now; you may of
> course respond on the list.
Your message to the list did arrive, it just took some time for the
mailing list server to bounce the messages to everybody. :) And welcome
to the list, BTW.
[...]
> Tania Kuteva calls these kinds of constructions "inconsequential", a
> grammatical category which is used to express that an action was taken
> in vain, i.e. that it didn't lead to the expected or wished-for
> consequences.
Interesting. Sounds quite close to what I have in mind.
> This was actually one of the topics for my oral final exam a few years
> ago, which is why she sent me an introductory manuscript in which she
> cites examples from Papua New Guinea language Hua:
>
> hako-mana-(o)
> seek-1SG-INCONSEQUENTIAL-(CLAM.VOC)
> 'I sought (but couldn't find)!'
> 'I looked (in vain)!'*
>
> Ke-hu-mana. (Kmivaro' a'bre)
> talk-do.1-INCONSEQUENTIAL
> 'I talked to him: (but he didn't listen to me.)'**
>
> *cited from Haiman, John 1988. Inconsequential clauses in Hua and the
> typology of clauses. In: Haiman, John and Sandra Thompson (eds.) 1988.
> Clause combining in grammar and discourse. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, pp.
> 49-69, here: p. 53.
>
> **cited from Haiman, John 1980. HUA: A Papuan language of the Eastern
> Highlands of New Guinea. Amsterdam: John Benjamins B.V., here: p. 158.
> (Yes, the punctuation looks like that in the manuscript.)
>
> Apparently, Haiman describes pre-contact Hua as not even having a word
> for "try" - although there was a conative morpheme, which could
> actually be combined with the inconsequential morpheme:
>
> Ke-hu-ko-mana (Kta d hau re)
> talk-do-CONATIVE-INCONSEQUENTIAL
> 'I tried to talk (but it was too hard for me to do so).' (Haiman 1980: 159)
Cool!! I like that idea!
> Russian seems to have a similar category usually referred to as the
> "unsuccessful conative" where a verb in the imperfect is contrasted
> with the same verb in a negated perfect form: V.IMPERFECT but not
> V.PERFECT 'I tried to V but in the end I didn't V'. This contrast
> highlights the counterfactual modality of the imperfect, which chimes
> with your choice of an imperative morphology since the imperative also
> has a counterfactual feel to it.
Interesting. So you're saying it's like V.IMPERFECT is in the process of
being accomplished, but ultimately stopped short, hence "didn't
V.PERFECT"?
You're right that the choice of imperative morphology is because of the
contrafactual modality -- an imperative implies that the action hasn't
been done yet (otherwise there would be no need to demand it), hence
contrafactual.
[...]
> What you're describing seems to me to be semantically similar to this
> inconsequential category - the action of you coming here is expected
> to result in me not shattering your glass dome, but this expectation
> is not met because I will still shatter it, whether you come or not.
> Your last two examples are a bit trickier to fit into this scheme,
> though, because language is taking a mental shortcut here: the most
> important bit of information is left out, namely that the "action
> taken in vain" is the mere prospective thought of many-eyed monsters
> or a catastrophe assumed to prevent the speaker from "going out there"
> or "doing this" now, not the monsters or the catastrophe themselves
> (because they haven't appeared/happened yet - so how could they
> prevent anyone from doing anything now?). Still, I think that the
> semantics are comparable enough (hey, that sentence was an
> inconsequential too - once you've got to know them, you'll start
> seeing them everywhere).
The way I perceive it, it's sorta like the equivalent of the English
"Come what may, I'm still going to do this". It's as though the speaker
issuing a challenge -- I'm going to do X, let all those who oppose me
come try to stop me, 'cos I'm gonna do it anyway! It's a kind of
disregard for the consequences of one's actions.
> Hope that helps - or that it is at least a push in the right direction :)
[...]
That was helpful, thanks! I'm not sure if it's exactly an
inconsequential, but at least it helps me think about it in a clearer
way. :)
On Fri, Jul 19, 2013 at 06:23:10AM -0300, Leonardo Castro wrote:
> 2013/7/18 H. S. Teoh <hst...@quickfur.ath.cx>:
> > What's the linguistic term for conjunctions like "even if", or "be
> > it that ..."?
>
> Maybe an emphatic adversative conjunctive adjunct.
Whoa. That's quite a mouthful. Mind unpacking that a bit for me? :)
> > I've discovered the first multi-clause construction in my alien
> > conlang, in which an indicative clause is coupled with an
> > imperative/hortative construction, but the latter isn't interpreted
> > as an imperative, but rather an "even if" kind of meaning.
>
> This reminds me of this:
>
> "Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days."
[...]
Yes, this is the kind of construction I'm thinking of. What's the term
for it?
On Fri, Jul 19, 2013 at 04:08:31PM +0100, David McCann wrote:
> On Thu, 18 Jul 2013 11:29:36 -0700
> "H. S. Teoh" <hst...@quickfur.ath.cx> wrote:
>
> > What's the linguistic term for conjunctions like "even if", or "be it
> > that ..."?
>
> A scalar concessive conditional, as distinct from an alternative
> concessive conditional (whether … or …).
What's a scalar concessive conditional?
T
--
Truth, Sir, is a cow which will give [skeptics] no more milk, and so
they are gone to milk the bull. -- Sam. Johnson
Messages in this topic (7)
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1c. Re: Fwd: "Even if"
Posted by: "Padraic Brown" elemti...@yahoo.com
Date: Fri Jul 19, 2013 2:18 pm ((PDT))
> From: H. S. Teoh <hst...@quickfur.ath.cx>
> The way I perceive it, it's sorta like the equivalent of the English
> "Come what may, I'm still going to do this". It's as though
> the speaker
> issuing a challenge -- I'm going to do X, let all those who oppose me
> come try to stop me, 'cos I'm gonna do it anyway! It's a kind of
> disregard for the consequences of one's actions.
>
[...]
>> This reminds me of this: "Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in
>> three days."
>
> Yes, this is the kind of construction I'm thinking of. What's the term
> for it?
Not exactly the same thing! This example is a straight "if you do X,
I will make Y will happen". And that is the way it happens. You seem
to be heading more for the "if you do X, even though I know I don't
have a snowball's chance on a warm day in Hell, I'm going to go ahead
with doing Y"!
>> Maybe an emphatic adversative conjunctive adjunct.
>
> Whoa. That's quite a mouthful. Mind unpacking that a bit for me? :)
Careful! These kinds of boxes can explode all over the place, spewing
their contents to every corner of the room. Ever try to pry adjunct goo
off the wallpaper? :/ Not fun!
Padraic
Messages in this topic (7)
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1d. Re: Fwd: "Even if"
Posted by: "H. S. Teoh" hst...@quickfur.ath.cx
Date: Fri Jul 19, 2013 3:25 pm ((PDT))
On Fri, Jul 19, 2013 at 02:18:05PM -0700, Padraic Brown wrote:
> > From: H. S. Teoh <hst...@quickfur.ath.cx>
>
> > The way I perceive it, it's sorta like the equivalent of the English
> > "Come what may, I'm still going to do this". It's as though the
> > speaker issuing a challenge -- I'm going to do X, let all those who
> > oppose me come try to stop me, 'cos I'm gonna do it anyway! It's a
> > kind of disregard for the consequences of one's actions.
> [...]
>
> >> This reminds me of this: "Destroy this temple, and I will raise it
> >> again in three days."
> >
> > Yes, this is the kind of construction I'm thinking of. What's the term
> > for it?
>
> Not exactly the same thing! This example is a straight "if you do X, I
> will make Y will happen". And that is the way it happens. You seem to
> be heading more for the "if you do X, even though I know I don't have
> a snowball's chance on a warm day in Hell, I'm going to go ahead with
> doing Y"!
Well, that's just one end of the spectrum. :) With such a commonplace
structure (indicative+imperative) it would be surprising if it's only
used when someone is hell-bent on doing X. The rest of the spectrum does
include milder expressions like "let's go out and talk to him, even if
he will start yelling at us".
> >> Maybe an emphatic adversative conjunctive adjunct.
> >
> > Whoa. That's quite a mouthful. Mind unpacking that a bit for me? :)
>
> Careful! These kinds of boxes can explode all over the place, spewing
> their contents to every corner of the room. Ever try to pry adjunct
> goo off the wallpaper? :/ Not fun!
[...]
I don't mind exploding boxes. My conlangs tend to explode boxes every
now and then. They just refuse to be boxed in by well-known,
nicely-behaved linguistic boxes, no matter how hard I try. Tatari Faran
refuses to behave like any language with "normal" case systems; then
when I started on the alien conlang, I actually started using normal
cases like nominatives, datives, ablatives, and patientives (which, so
far, behave essentially like accusatives), only to have the *rest* of
the language explode in my face by refusing to attest any verbs, and
refusing to have standalone pronouns.
I'm still holding out hope for "real" verbs in the alien conlang, though
the weight of evidence seems to be pointing the other way right now.
I've given up hope on the pronouns, though. They only exist as
possessives, and what should normally be unmarked pronouns are actually
possessives of various body parts -- "my body" instead of "I", "my hands
handle" instead of "I handle", "my feet walk" instead of "I walk", "your
tongue speaks to my ear" instead of "you speak to me", etc.. These
conlang things have a life of their own, and simply refuse to be tamed!
(Well, actually, it's even worse than "your tongue speaks to my ear" and
"my feet walk"; it's actually "your-tongueing my-ear" and "my-feet-ing".
A verbalising suffix is tacked onto the noun+possessive, and that turns
it into a kind of pseudo-verb. I say pseudo-verb because if you then
stick in a nominative NP, the "pseudo-verb" turns into an instrumental
NP!
voluŋtekmi aiherltu.
voluŋ-tek-mi aiherl-tu.
spaceship-2SG.POSS-??? distant_skies-DAT
You fly by spaceship to the distant skies.
[Lit. Your-spaceshipping to the distant skies]
voluŋtekmi gruŋgen aiherltu.
voluŋ-tek-mi gruŋ-en-0 aiherl-tu.
spaceship-2SG.POSS-??? hands-1SG.POSS-NOM distant_skies-DAT
I fly your spaceship to the distant skies.
[Lit. ??! I don't even know how to transliterate this one.
By-your-spaceshipping my-hands to the distant skies?!]
I glossed -mi as ??? because sometimes it acts like a verbalizer, and
sometimes like an instrumental case marker. Crazy things.)
T
--
Making non-nullable pointers is just plugging one hole in a cheese
grater. -- Walter Bright
Messages in this topic (7)
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
2a. Re: Rolling your R's
Posted by: "H. S. Teoh" hst...@quickfur.ath.cx
Date: Fri Jul 19, 2013 10:48 am ((PDT))
On Wed, Jul 17, 2013 at 05:45:53PM -0300, Leonardo Castro wrote:
> My native dialect doesn't have alveolar trills, but pt-BR does have
> them in some accents. I find it easy to pronounce (bilabiar trill is
> far more difficult),
Really? I find the bilabial trill really easy. It's just a "raspberry"
(in American parlance).
> but many of my relatives are unable to pronounce the alveolar trill.
[...]
I read somewhere that many languages that have the alveolar trill also
has words for describing people who can't pronounce it. :) So it's
probably a common phenomenon.
On Thu, Jul 18, 2013 at 12:30:43PM +0200, BPJ wrote:
[...]
> I'm in fact a speaker of two somewhat different Swedish
> accents/dialects, one of them having [ɾ]/[r] as a simple/geminate
> pair and the other [ɾ]/[r]/[ɻ] in rather free variation. The
> interesting thing is that [ɻ] is an innovation; I can still
> remember a time when I didn't use it, and younger speakers of
> either of my accents have only [ɻ], so I'm conservative! There
> have always been some speakers of Gothenburg Swedish who used
> uvular /r/ as an individual trait; apparently it runs in
> families, so there may be a physiological difficulty pronouncing
> alveolar/retroflex rhotics for some. I don't normally speak with
> [ʀ] or [ʁ] but I have never had any difficulty pronouncing and
> using either even before I studied phonetics. I had a
> kindergarten teacher from Denmark when I was 2-3 y.o. and I could
> do a fabulous imitation of her accent, or so they say. I can
> produce an epiglottal trill, and I use it when imitating a dog's
> growling, but I can't use it in speech.
[...]
How many different kinds of trills are there? AFAIK, there are:
- Bilabial [B\]
- Apical:
- Alveolar [r]
- Retroflex (?)
- Uvular [R\]
What's an epiglottal trill? I don't even have any idea how to even begin
to pronounce that!
Are there any other possible trills?
On Thu, Jul 18, 2013 at 03:53:33PM +0100, David McCann wrote:
> On Wed, 17 Jul 2013 17:45:53 -0300
> Leonardo Castro <leolucas1...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > I wonder how common it is for people to be unable to pronounce
> > sounds of other accents of their own language...
>
> The British /r/ is a coronal approximant, but I have never managed
> either that or the flap, despite trying every piece of advice offered
> to foreign learners! Like quite a few, I use a uvular approximant. Up
> in the North East they have the uvular fricative (a pronunciation
> called a Durham burr) and I can do that, or a real Parisian trill.
> Incidentally, I don't use /r/ in words like "trip" and "drip", where
> the initial comes out as as an apical coronal affricate, as
> distinguished from the laminal one in "chip" and "gyp".
I have a lot of trouble trilling /tr/ and /dr/. I'm still unsure whether
the trill I'm learning is alveolar [r] or retroflex (is there a symbol
for that??). The POA of my [r] is significantly nearer to the hard
palate than [t], so trying to combine [t] with [r] doesn't quite work.
On Thu, Jul 18, 2013 at 10:09:35AM -0700, Cosman246 wrote:
> I can do a uvular trill, but not alveolar. I wonder how one could
> learn...
[...]
I wish I knew how to explain it. For about 3 decades I've been unable to
produce an alveolar trill, in spite of being given countless advice on
how to do it. Well, I'm still not 100% sure what I'm pronouncing is an
*alveolar* trill; it's some kind of apical trill, that much is clear,
but the POA seems to be significantly nearer to the hard palate than an
alveolar trill would be expected to be.
I accidentally discovered it when trying to pronounce /ExrlU/, which I
envisioned as [Ex] followed by some kind of guttural trill. I think when
I first started it mostly came out as [x:] or [X:], but then somewhere
along the line it started trilling. I couldn't reliably produce the
trill at the time, though. I had to keep trying to say /ExrlU/ and maybe
1 out of 10 tries will get a brief trill that I couldn't hold for more
than half a second or so. I was rather excited that *something* was
trilling, so I kept trying different mouth positions to figure out how
to strengthen the trill. Most of my attempts (99%) fell flat, I have to
say. They weren't kidding when they said [r] is a difficult sound!
Eventually, I somehow managed to get a trill semi-reliably, though in
retrospect, I think it was sometimes [R\] and sometimes [r] (or whatever
the retroflex/retracted equivalent is), or some hybrid of the two (and I
couldn't control which one would come out). Both were voiceless, because
I was still using the [Exr] combination as a clutch to get the trill
going. I think the actual trilling position requires [exr] or [Eexr]; if
the vowel is too open at the onset of /xr/, it doesn't work. And I can
only produce the trill when speaking forcefully; I think it's something
to do with the amount of air pressure required to begin and sustain the
vibration.
It took me another while before I could slowly begin voicing the [r]
without destroying the trill. Even right now, I still can't produce [r]
reliably in speech. Even in isolation, once in a while I can make an
initial [r] but usually I still need the initial [E] or [e] to get
things going. Lately, I've been experimenting with lip-widening or
tensing the muscles in the upper lateral part of my mouth (does anybody
know which muscles those might be?) to help strengthen the trill.
On Wed, Jul 17, 2013 at 11:17:01PM +0200, Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets wrote:
> On 17 July 2013 21:15, H. S. Teoh <hst...@quickfur.ath.cx> wrote:
>
> > Hehe, OK. I should look that up online when I get home. :)
> >
> > I think I can now identify the uvular trill (at least when I'm
> > saying it myself). Like others have said, it's like gargling without
> > water. A French oral tradition, perhaps? :-P :-P
> >
> >
> Okay, I feel like I'm repeating myself, but I guess I have to since
> this bit of misinformation keeps coming back on the list: The French
> rhotic is normally *not* an uvular trill [ʀ]. It's an uvular
> *fricative* [ʁ] in most of the country (well, that or an approximant.
> Somehow the IPA uses the same symbol for both), and an alveolar trill
> [r] in some Southern accents. The uvular trill exists only in the
> speech of *some* Parisians (of whom Edith Piaf was the most well
> known), and it's an accent that is strongly decried, and made fun of,
> by the rest of France. In any case, it's not a sound you should use as
> a foreigner to speak French, as people may take it as if you were
> making fun of them (it *is* jarring). The uvular fricative is far
> easier to pronounce, so if you want to speak French I'd advise you to
> focus on that one anyway :) .
OK, good to know. I was just kidding about the *oral* tradition, though.
:)
> That said, if you just want to learn to pronounce and recognise uvular
> trills just for the sake of it, knock yourself out with Piaf, she's
> got very strong ones!
[...]
Well, currently my alien conlang officially has an [r]/[R\] contrast, so
I'd like to learn the uvular trill just so I can pronounce my own
conlang! :)
[...]
> > > Do y'all have trouble pronouncing trills? And if not, what kind of
> > > trill(s) can you pronounce, and how?
> > > ==================================
> > > RM Try as I might, I cannot produce the uvular trill of Parisian
> > > French (except when gargling ;-(((( ) though I can do uvular
> > > stops and fricatives without a problem.
> >
>
> Strangely enough, I have no problem pronouncing uvular trills,
> fricatives and approximants, but have a hard time with uvular stops.
I've a hard time telling the difference between a velar stop and an
uvular stop.
[...]
> > German has the uvular trill too?
> >
> >
> It has [r], [ʁ] and [ʀ] in free variation for a single /r/ phoneme,
> mostly depending on dialect I believe. I have no idea which is the
> more common.
>
> Some Dutch dialects also have the uvular trill as realisation of their
> rhotic phoneme.
Is that the same sound in "Margriet"? My wife visited Holland last year,
and she was describing how that name has a really guttural sound that
she can't pronounce (she got told to stop trying and just say "Margaret"
like in English).
[...]
> > You've no idea how happy I am to have discovered how to pronounce
> > trills, however imperfect it may be at the moment... my entire
> > childhood of exposure to Malay and being unable to trill my /r/'s,
> > and then learning Russian in my adulthood and *still* being unable
> > to trill my /r/'s.
> >
> >
> When I first started learning Spanish, something like 22 years ago, I
> despaired of ever getting both its rhotics right. The flap was
> relatively easy. But the trill mystified me. Until I somehow got it
> one day (after repeating about a thousand times "el perro de San Roque
> no tiene rabo"!). Since then I never forgot it. Trilling is like
> biking: after you learn it you never forget :) . Actually, it went so
> far that when I got the trill right I somehow lost the ability to make
> correct flaps (I would trill them too much), and I had to relearn to
> make flaps! :P
OK, now I'm *really* wondering if what I think I'm pronouncing as a flap
is actually just a really fast [d], because it has absolutely *no*
resemblance to the way I'm pronouncing my trills right now!
> The trick that did it for me, IIRC, was to stop focussing on tongue
> movement and start focussing on my breath. Alveolar trills are not
> produced by consciously moving your tongue, but rather by placing your
> tongue in the right position, relaxing its tip, and letting the air
> flow do the work for you. The difficult part is relaxing the tongue
> just enough. Relaxing it too much will result in not much of anything,
> while not relaxing it enough will produce a fricative. There's a kind
> of Goldilocks zone of relaxation when it comes to trills :P.
Interesting. I *am* finding that in order to get a trill, I need a
rather forceful breath -- trying to trill while whispering doesn't work.
(Which is kinda odd, since my trills started out voiceless!) I do find
that tongue position matters a lot, as well as the shape of the mouth
cavity. I keep alluding to the muscles at the roof of my mouth, because
I found that the trill comes more easily when those muscles are tense,
which causes the mouth cavity to narrow at the top. I'm guessing that
this constricts the airflow over the tongue, which helps sustain the
trill. Since I never used to use these muscles in speech, I'm having a
really hard time integrating my [r]'s into regular speech. :)
[...]
> Palatalised trills are easy enough. My own problem is being unable to
> distinguish alveolo-palatal fricatives from postalveolar ones!
[...]
What, there's a difference?!
On Thu, Jul 18, 2013 at 11:43:35AM +0100, Sam Stutter wrote:
> The amount of times I hear English people attempting to do Edith Piaf
> style accents and thinking it's great French! Am I right when I tell
> them that they're doing the French equivalent of Dick van Dyke in Mary
> Poppins?
[...]
Well, you know how language stereotypes go. When I was young, we used to
mock English-speakers (specifically, British English speakers) for
"speaking with their nose", i.e., making ugly nasal sounds, esp. in a
stereotypical snobbish fashion. Ironically enough, English doesn't even
*have* nasal vowels, whereas nasal vowels are phonemic in my L1!
And before I learnt Russian, I used to believe the TV stereotypes that
it has a lot of guttural fricative sounds or otherwise "harsh" sounds
(whatever that meant). After actually *learning* Russian, I find that
Russian is actually quite mellifluous!
On Wed, Jul 17, 2013 at 04:58:49PM -0400, J. 'Mach' Wust wrote:
> On Wed, 17 Jul 2013 10:59:52 +0200, taliesin the storyteller
> <taliesin-conl...@nvg.org> wrote:
>
> >On 2013-07-17 09:18, BPJ wrote:
> >> I guess you can coarticulate a uvular and an alveolar
> >> trill/fricative but I'd guess that you're just pronouncing a
> >> voiceless uvular trill. A forcefully articulated /X/ easily becomes
> >> trilled. You should rather easily feel if the uvula is vibrating;
> >> it kind of bubbles in your throat.
> >
> >.. like gargling water without the water, really.
>
> It might also be an epiglottal trill, though. I imagine that for
> someone who couldn't pronounce either before, the uvular and the
> epiglottal trill might feel very similar. I have a hard time producing
> an epiglottal trill, but I can distinguish it from the uvular trill
> since that one, I can pronounce reliably (though not very naturally).
> So when I produce something different vibrating even further back and
> down than the uvula, I am pretty sure it must be the epiglottis. Most
> of the times I try producing that trill, it just gargles, but
> sometimes, I get a very distinct trill.
[...]
I've no idea how to even begin to pronounce an epiglottal trill! (I
didn't even know there's such a thing as an epiglottis before coming to
this list.) It'd be interesting to learn, though. It's good conlang
material. :)
T
--
VI = Visual Irritation
Messages in this topic (26)
________________________________________________________________________
2b. Re: Rolling your R's
Posted by: "George Corley" gacor...@gmail.com
Date: Fri Jul 19, 2013 11:25 am ((PDT))
On Fri, Jul 19, 2013 at 12:47 PM, H. S. Teoh <hst...@quickfur.ath.cx> wrote:
> On Wed, Jul 17, 2013 at 05:45:53PM -0300, Leonardo Castro wrote:
> > My native dialect doesn't have alveolar trills, but pt-BR does have
> > them in some accents. I find it easy to pronounce (bilabiar trill is
> > far more difficult),
>
> Really? I find the bilabial trill really easy. It's just a "raspberry"
> (in American parlance).
A "raspberry" is actually often a linguolabial trill -- or something close
to it. I've never cared to learn how to do it.
Messages in this topic (26)
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2c. Re: Rolling your R's
Posted by: "C. Brickner" tepeyach...@embarqmail.com
Date: Fri Jul 19, 2013 11:25 am ((PDT))
----- Original Message -----
On Wed, Jul 17, 2013 at 05:45:53PM -0300, Leonardo Castro wrote:
> My native dialect doesn't have alveolar trills, but pt-BR does have
> them in some accents. I find it easy to pronounce (bilabiar trill is
> far more difficult),
Really? I find the bilabial trill really easy. It's just a "raspberry"
(in American parlance).
====================
This was never my idea of a "raspberry", a "Bronx cheer". From the Wikipedia
article "Blowing a raspberry": "It is made by placing the tongue between the
lips and blowing to produce a sound similar to flatulence." There is also a
video demonstrating how to do it. Could you call this a linguolabial trill"?
I should think that a bilabial trill would not involve the tongue. The
Wikipedia article "Bilabial trill" says that the tongue is not involved in the
trill. I can do that if I get enough air in my lungs to start it.
Charlie
Messages in this topic (26)
________________________________________________________________________
2d. Re: Rolling your R's
Posted by: "H. S. Teoh" hst...@quickfur.ath.cx
Date: Fri Jul 19, 2013 11:58 am ((PDT))
On Fri, Jul 19, 2013 at 01:25:45PM -0500, George Corley wrote:
> On Fri, Jul 19, 2013 at 12:47 PM, H. S. Teoh <hst...@quickfur.ath.cx> wrote:
>
> > On Wed, Jul 17, 2013 at 05:45:53PM -0300, Leonardo Castro wrote:
> > > My native dialect doesn't have alveolar trills, but pt-BR does
> > > have them in some accents. I find it easy to pronounce (bilabiar
> > > trill is far more difficult),
> >
> > Really? I find the bilabial trill really easy. It's just a
> > "raspberry" (in American parlance).
>
>
> A "raspberry" is actually often a linguolabial trill -- or something
> close to it. I've never cared to learn how to do it.
On Fri, Jul 19, 2013 at 02:25:51PM -0400, C. Brickner wrote:
[...]
> This was never my idea of a "raspberry", a "Bronx cheer". From the
> Wikipedia article "Blowing a raspberry": "It is made by placing the
> tongue between the lips and blowing to produce a sound similar to
> flatulence." There is also a video demonstrating how to do it. Could
> you call this a linguolabial trill"?
>
> I should think that a bilabial trill would not involve the tongue.
> The Wikipedia article "Bilabial trill" says that the tongue is not
> involved in the trill. I can do that if I get enough air in my lungs
> to start it.
[...]
You're both right, [B\] is not a raspberry. It only involves the lips.
Basically you just purse your lips (loosely) and blow through them so
that they flap repeatedly.
Well, maybe it could be described as a tongueless raspberry? :)
T
--
Too many people have open minds but closed eyes.
Messages in this topic (26)
________________________________________________________________________
2e. Re: Rolling your R's
Posted by: "Garth Wallace" gwa...@gmail.com
Date: Fri Jul 19, 2013 11:59 am ((PDT))
On Fri, Jul 19, 2013 at 10:47 AM, H. S. Teoh <hst...@quickfur.ath.cx> wrote:
>
> OK, now I'm *really* wondering if what I think I'm pronouncing as a flap
> is actually just a really fast [d], because it has absolutely *no*
> resemblance to the way I'm pronouncing my trills right now!
A flap IS a really fast [d], more or less: the articulation is the
same but contact between the tongue and the roof of the mouth is brief
enough that the airflow isn't interrupted. The English /d/ is usually
[ɾ] intervocalically.
Messages in this topic (26)
________________________________________________________________________
2f. Re: Rolling your R's
Posted by: "R A Brown" r...@carolandray.plus.com
Date: Fri Jul 19, 2013 12:41 pm ((PDT))
On 19/07/2013 19:25, C. Brickner wrote:
> ----- Original Message ----- On Wed, Jul 17, 2013 at
> 05:45:53PM -0300, Leonardo Castro wrote:
>> My native dialect doesn't have alveolar trills, but
>> pt-BR does have them in some accents. I find it easy to
>> pronounce (bilabiar trill is far more difficult),
>
> Really? I find the bilabial trill really easy. It's just
> a "raspberry" (in American parlance).
> ==================== This was never my idea of a
> "raspberry", a "Bronx cheer".
Nor mine.
> From the Wikipedia article "Blowing a raspberry": "It is
> made by placing the tongue between the lips and blowing
> to produce a sound similar to flatulence."
Hence the name 'raspberry' . It's rhyming slang: raspberry
tart ~ fart.
> There is also a video demonstrating how to do it.
Does one really need a video ;)
> Could you call this a linguolabial trill"?
Apparently you could - but AFAIUI the sound is not attested
as a phoneme (or phone) in any natlang. I guess it's felt
to be too rude ;)
> I should think that a bilabial trill would not involve
> the tongue.
You think correctly. A bilabial trill is just what it says:
a sound produced by bring the two lips (bilabial) together
and vibrating them (trilling) as air is released between the
vibrations.
I can manage a uvular trill, an alveolar trill if final and,
on a good day, initial or between vowels. But attempts at
the bilabial trill I find as difficult as Leonardo does.
However, I can do the raspberry business (once learnt as a
kid, always remembered).
> The Wikipedia article "Bilabial trill" says that the
> tongue is not involved in the trill.
This time WP is correct :)
--
Ray
==================================
http://www.carolandray.plus.com
==================================
"language … began with half-musical unanalysed expressions
for individual beings and events."
[Otto Jespersen, Progress in Language, 1895]
Messages in this topic (26)
________________________________________________________________________
2g. Re: Rolling your R's
Posted by: "Leonardo Castro" leolucas1...@gmail.com
Date: Fri Jul 19, 2013 2:18 pm ((PDT))
2013/7/19 H. S. Teoh <hst...@quickfur.ath.cx>:
> On Wed, Jul 17, 2013 at 05:45:53PM -0300, Leonardo Castro wrote:
>> My native dialect doesn't have alveolar trills, but pt-BR does have
>> them in some accents. I find it easy to pronounce (bilabiar trill is
>> far more difficult),
>
> Really? I find the bilabial trill really easy. It's just a "raspberry"
> (in American parlance).
But do you find it easy to pronounce a bilabial trill followed or
preceded by a vowel?
Before some Chorus classes, we had to do, as exercise, bilabial trills
with the lips relaxed. It was even more difficult when many people
start laughing at the ridiculousness of the situation.
> On Thu, Jul 18, 2013 at 03:53:33PM +0100, David McCann wrote:
>
>
> On Thu, Jul 18, 2013 at 10:09:35AM -0700, Cosman246 wrote:
>> I can do a uvular trill, but not alveolar. I wonder how one could
>> learn...
[...]
> I wish I knew how to explain it. For about 3 decades I've been unable to
> produce an alveolar trill, in spite of being given countless advice on
> how to do it. Well, I'm still not 100% sure what I'm pronouncing is an
> *alveolar* trill; it's some kind of apical trill, that much is clear,
> but the POA seems to be significantly nearer to the hard palate than an
> alveolar trill would be expected to be.
Once I noted that, while pronouncing an alveolar trill, the left
border of my tongue keeps immobile in contact with my left teeth, kind
of supported by them, and only right border actually vibrates.
Trying to "correct" it, I found that making the whole tongue vibrate
requires much more effort from me.
Messages in this topic (26)
________________________________________________________________________
2h. Re: Rolling your R's
Posted by: "H. S. Teoh" hst...@quickfur.ath.cx
Date: Fri Jul 19, 2013 10:47 pm ((PDT))
On Fri, Jul 19, 2013 at 11:59:25AM -0700, Garth Wallace wrote:
> On Fri, Jul 19, 2013 at 10:47 AM, H. S. Teoh <hst...@quickfur.ath.cx> wrote:
> >
> > OK, now I'm *really* wondering if what I think I'm pronouncing as a
> > flap is actually just a really fast [d], because it has absolutely
> > *no* resemblance to the way I'm pronouncing my trills right now!
>
> A flap IS a really fast [d], more or less: the articulation is the
> same but contact between the tongue and the roof of the mouth is brief
> enough that the airflow isn't interrupted. The English /d/ is usually
> [ɾ] intervocalically.
OK, good to know. Well, then the description of [r] being a "prolonged
[4]" is completely inaccurate, because I simply cannot produce any trill
from that POA at all! I have to hold my tongue differently, slightly
raised in the middle, and contract the roof of my mouth somewhat, and
breathe differently, in order to make [r]. Completely unlike [d] or [4].
On Fri, Jul 19, 2013 at 06:17:55PM -0300, Leonardo Castro wrote:
> 2013/7/19 H. S. Teoh <hst...@quickfur.ath.cx>:
> > On Wed, Jul 17, 2013 at 05:45:53PM -0300, Leonardo Castro wrote:
> >> My native dialect doesn't have alveolar trills, but pt-BR does have
> >> them in some accents. I find it easy to pronounce (bilabiar trill
> >> is far more difficult),
> >
> > Really? I find the bilabial trill really easy. It's just a
> > "raspberry" (in American parlance).
>
> But do you find it easy to pronounce a bilabial trill followed or
> preceded by a vowel?
Funny, I just tried it, and found it's easier to pronounce initial [B\]
followed by a vowel, and much harder to for an initial vowel to
transition to [B\]. In either case, I've to blow really hard to get my
lips to flap while pronouncing a vowel before/after. You're right that
[B\] in isolation is the easiest of them all.
Also, trying to say [B\a], [aB\], and [aB\a] again, I find that voiced
[B\] is much harder than unvoiced [B\]. Maybe this is because I'm
unconsciously actually pronouncing it as [pB\] (very short labial stop
with trilled release), and voicing tenses the lips in the wrong way for
trilling. (Well, not the voicing itself, but probably an unconscious
habitual correspondence of lip muscle position with devoicing.)
In any case, [B\] seems to require a very forceful puff of air to get
the lips vibrating. Which has the unfortunate effect of increasing the
likelihood of unwanted spewage of oral fluids. Perhaps that's why it's
such a rare phoneme -- it's too likely to just get dropped if it ever
developed naturally in a language.
> Before some Chorus classes, we had to do, as exercise, bilabial trills
> with the lips relaxed. It was even more difficult when many people
> start laughing at the ridiculousness of the situation.
Well, up here in the Great White North, we say [B\] when the bitter cold
of harsh winter descends upon us, so we don't quite regard it as
ridiculous as tropical dwellers may. ;-)
> > On Thu, Jul 18, 2013 at 03:53:33PM +0100, David McCann wrote:
> > On Thu, Jul 18, 2013 at 10:09:35AM -0700, Cosman246 wrote:
> >> I can do a uvular trill, but not alveolar. I wonder how one could
> >> learn...
> [...]
>
> > I wish I knew how to explain it. For about 3 decades I've been
> > unable to produce an alveolar trill, in spite of being given
> > countless advice on how to do it. Well, I'm still not 100% sure
> > what I'm pronouncing is an *alveolar* trill; it's some kind of
> > apical trill, that much is clear, but the POA seems to be
> > significantly nearer to the hard palate than an alveolar trill would
> > be expected to be.
>
> Once I noted that, while pronouncing an alveolar trill, the left
> border of my tongue keeps immobile in contact with my left teeth, kind
> of supported by them, and only right border actually vibrates.
>
> Trying to "correct" it, I found that making the whole tongue vibrate
> requires much more effort from me.
Huh, that's interesting. So you're saying your trills are ... lateral?
Unilateral, even, if one may abuse the term. :) Makes me wonder if any
language has unilateral phonemes... it'd be good conlang material (for a
freaklang, that is :-P).
T
--
We are in class, we are supposed to be learning, we have a teacher... Is
it too much that I expect him to teach me??? -- RL
Messages in this topic (26)
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