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There are 25 messages in this issue.
Topics in this digest:
1. Re: Need some help with terms: was "rhotic miscellany"
From: Ray Brown <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
2. Re: Need some help with terms: was "rhotic miscellany"
From: Garth Wallace <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
3. /k/ in i.t.a.
From: Jean-FranÃois Colson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
4. Re: /k/ in i.t.a.
From: Jean-FranÃois Colson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
5. Re: /k/ in i.t.a.
From: "B. Garcia" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
6. It's me again :)
From: Yann Kiraly <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
7. Re: Need some help with terms: was "rhotic miscellany"
From: John Cowan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
8. Small relay
From: Yann Kiraly <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
9. Re: Spelling pronunciations (was: rhotic miscellany)
From: John Cowan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
10. Re: /k/ in i.t.a.
From: Muke Tever <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
11. Re: Need some help with terms: was "rhotic miscellany"
From: Sally Caves <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
12. Re: Small relay
From: Jan van Steenbergen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
13. Re: CXS changes
From: "J. 'Mach' Wust" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
14. Re: Need some help with terms: was "rhotic miscellany"
From: "Mark J. Reed" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
15. Re: Need some help with terms: was "rhotic miscellany"
From: Sally Caves <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
16. Re: back to "rhotic miscellany"
From: caeruleancentaur <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
17. Re: Need some help with terms: was "rhotic miscellany"
From: John Cowan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
18. Re: Advanced English + Babel text
From: Henrik Theiling <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
19. Re: Small relay
From: Rodlox <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
20. Re: ANADEWISM: Natlangs that do comparison with true verbs?
From: Carsten Becker <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
21. Re: Spelling pronunciations (was: rhotic miscellany)
From: Joe <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
22. Re: back to "rhotic miscellany"
From: Andreas Johansson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
23. Re: ANADEWISM: Natlangs that do comparison with true verbs?
From: Carsten Becker <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
24. Re: Small relay
From: Yann Kiraly <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
25. Re: CXS changes
From: Andreas Johansson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
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Message: 1
Date: Mon, 8 Nov 2004 07:20:22 +0000
From: Ray Brown <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Need some help with terms: was "rhotic miscellany"
On Sunday, November 7, 2004, at 02:59 , Sally Caves wrote:
[snip]
> I just can't duplicate what John is describing and still pronounce "car"
> the
> way I do it.
OOOOPS!!!!
Looks like some of us have been writing at cross purposes - probably not
for the first time in this thread :)
I cannot answer for John, but I've been assuming that Sally was talking
about the |r| in |rack|, not the |r| in |car|. While I have an alveolar
approximant for the first, I have no consonant at all for the second!
As I think it is well known, in the urban speech of south east England &
in RP there is no rhotic consonant in syllable coda. I pronounce |car| as
[k_hA:]. On some words we use centering diphthongs, e.g. |here| [EMAIL
PROTECTED]
Now many rural dialects do use r-colored vowels or diphthongs here and,
indeed, in certain circumstance I occasionally use them also. These
_vowels_ are, as I have written earlier in the thread, termed 'retroflex'
by some people because the r-coloring is given tongue movement similar to
retroflexion. It does of course describe the _manner_ in which these
vowels are pronounced.
But as Marcos has written, and I agreed with him, this usage is confusing
as it is *not* the same usage as IPA point of articulation of consonants.
IPA charts name he feature denoted by the diacritic which CXS represents
thus [`] (my mailer doesn't seem to like the actual IPA symbol) as
'rhotocity'.
I suspect this is where the confusion has come into this thread. We have
not all been writing about the same thing or using the term 'retroflex' in
the same way.
Now, back to |car|. The rhotic dialects of south England & the midlands
have [k_hA`], that is [A] pronounced with retroflexion of the tongue, i.e.
r-colored or rhoticized. But there's no consonant. It's rather like the
nasal consonants in, say, French where a final nasal consonant ha been
dropped leaving the vowel pronounced with nasalization. Similarly, in the
rhotic dialects I am familiar with, the final /r/ has disappeared as a
consonant, leaving only a rhoticized vowel.
I've assumed - probably because the effect is similar and I have been
_hearing_ a sound I'm familiar with & not _listening_ carefully - that the
same was true of the American r-colored vowels. Indeed, because I
understood similar vowels occurred in modern standard Chinese as well as
in Merkan English & some Brit varieties, I had once considrred using |r|
as a vowel in BrSc - but was dissuaded after disussion on this list.
But as I cannot hear Sally speak, I can make no judgment and it may well
be that she and many other Merkans do have a separate _consonant_ here,
namely the retroflex approximant. Certainly some Scots speakers seem to
make a separate aprroximant consonant in such positions (other Scots have
trilled /r/ here, as do Welsh speakers).
If Sally does indeed have the retroflex approximant here, then CXS
certainly has a symbol for it, albeit a compound symbol, namely [r\`].
Do those speakers who have [r\`] in syllable coda, use the same
approximant in onset position? In other words, do Merkans generally
pronounce /r/ in |car| the same as the /r/ in |rack|?
Ray
===============================================
http://home.freeuk.com/ray.brown
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
===============================================
Anything is possible in the fabulous Celtic twilight,
which is not so much a twilight of the gods
as of the reason." [JRRT, "English and Welsh" ]
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Message: 2
Date: Mon, 8 Nov 2004 02:44:32 -0800
From: Garth Wallace <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Need some help with terms: was "rhotic miscellany"
Ray Brown wrote:
>
> Do those speakers who have [r\`] in syllable coda, use the same
> approximant in onset position? In other words, do Merkans generally
> pronounce /r/ in |car| the same as the /r/ in |rack|?
Well, IMD, they're certainly felt to be the same phoneme. But the mouth
position for the /r/ in "rack" feels more tense than for the /r/ in
"car". I suspect the former is [r\] (of the "bunched" variety, as my
tongue tip does not seem to curl back), while the latter is a glide to
rhotacization of the preceding vowel (in this case, [kaa`_^]). However,
in "roar" the articulation seems to be the same for both, so the initial
[r\] may cause the final /r/ to be realized as [r\] due to some sort of
sub-phonemic assimilation.
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Message: 3
Date: Mon, 8 Nov 2004 13:09:55 +0100
From: Jean-FranÃois Colson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: /k/ in i.t.a.
Hi all
I see that in Pitman Initial Teaching Alphabet, which is a phonemic alphabet,
different characters
are used for the c of cat and the k of key.
Is there any difference between those characters?
If not, how are they used?
JF
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Message: 4
Date: Mon, 8 Nov 2004 14:19:46 +0100
From: Jean-FranÃois Colson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: /k/ in i.t.a.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Jean-FranÃois Colson" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Monday, November 08, 2004 1:09 PM
Subject: /k/ in i.t.a.
> Hi all
>
> I see that in Pitman Initial Teaching Alphabet, which is a phonemic alphabet,
> different characters
> are used for the c of cat and the k of key.
> Is there any difference between those characters?
Er... of course I meant "between the sounds represented by those characters".
> If not, how are they used?
>
> JF
>
Here are 2 links to i.t.a. tables:
http://www.omniglot.com/writing/ita.htm
http://www.itafoundation.org/alphabet.htm
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Message: 5
Date: Mon, 8 Nov 2004 05:25:35 -0800
From: "B. Garcia" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: /k/ in i.t.a.
My guess is there's no difference in pronunciation as the Pitman
Initial Teaching Alphabet was designed to make learning to read easier
for English speaking children. My guess on the use is they'd be used
as they are in English. Notice that there are additions for the vowel
sounds of English and consonants that do not have a specific glyph
representation in the Latin alphabet.
--
You can turn away from me
but there's nothing that'll keep me here you know
And you'll never be the city guy
Any more than I'll be hosting The Scooby Show
Scooby Show - Belle and Sebastian
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Message: 6
Date: Mon, 8 Nov 2004 08:35:56 -0500
From: Yann Kiraly <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: It's me again :)
After realising that my quest for Minilang Perfection had taken a wrong
turn, I developed a far more minimal and easy to learn approach:
Phonology:
tkslmnj
iua
Gram:
Word blocks are separated by conjunctions, that make the text more
readable. Words are derived from consonant stems that are combined with
vowel paterns, of which we have:
CaCi
CaCa
CaCu
CiCi
CiCa
CiCu
CuCi
CuCa
CuCu
Variants can be formed through combinations. Every word has two forms,
called, logically, form 1 and form 2. Form two is produced by putting the
vowel(s) in front of the consonant(s) instead of behind. The second form
has 3 meanings, depending on the binding type, explained further down, of
the word:
o Binding:
Genitive (turns it into a -o binding)
-o Binding:
Comparative (turns it into a -o- binding)
-o- or variable binding:
Non-present
Binding is the conection a word can make to other words. It works like
this:
o binding words can not bind themselves to anything. -o binding words bind
themselves only to the last preceeding o binding word.
-o- bind themselves to the last preceeding and the nearest following o
binding word. Variable bindng words are words that can be connected to a
following word but don't have to.
To make this language computer parsable and quick to read and speak, words
that are bound together turn into one word.In speech, they are pronounced
as one long word, with the stress on every second word's first syllable.
Between these blocks of words there are isolated conjunctions, that
explain the relation between two word blocks. They are:
ki,si,ti, ma, na. and, because, by, despite, neutral respectavely. Any
comments?
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Message: 7
Date: Mon, 8 Nov 2004 08:17:40 -0500
From: John Cowan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Need some help with terms: was "rhotic miscellany"
Sally Caves scripsit:
> I just can't duplicate what John is describing and still pronounce "car"
> the way I do it. So there's no curling up of your tongue tip towards
> the roof of your mouth? It stays behind your lower teeth? Is there any
> curling at all, John? When I try to duplicate that, without the curl,
> I get not only a sound that changes the quality of my "a," but an "r"
> that sounds like "caw" with "r-coloring," If I curl it, with the tongue
> still behind the lower teeth, I get a deeper sounding r, but in order
> to make it sound right, it still points up at the roof of my mouth.
On further investigation, my /r/ (both initial and coda) is a velar
approximant, with the tongue-behind-lower-teeth a secondary gesture.
Or perhaps it is not a gesture at all, but just the physical consequence
of keeping the front of my tongue slack.
> You and I have met at Tim's house (that was a wonderful party!).
> I don't think I noticed that your "r" was different from mine.
> Maybe these distinctions are so subtle that it's hard for others to
> hear it when they aren't listening for it.
Mindful of this, I taught myself to say "car" and "rack" with my own /r/,
with an alveolar approximant, and with a retroflex approximant. I tested
these as minimal pairs and as the full triplet on two native speakers of
American English, one rhotic and one partly non-rhotic (typical speakers
of NYC English have both rhotic and non-rhotic varieties at command,
and use more rhotics as the register rises). Nobody could hear any of
the differences.
So I suspect that children learn their American /r/s whichever way,
and suppose that everyone else pronounces it just the way they do,
but if all our mouths had fingers in them, we'd find a wide variety of
different styles of pronunciation.
> I guess I'm frustrated that I don't completely grasp where these areas
> in my mouth are: "post alveolar, alveolar palatal, and retroflex region.
> I have been entrenched in thinking that retroflex means the curling
> of the tongue UP.
The trouble is that the classical POA terms are capturing two separate
facts simultaneously: where the tongue is touching or almost touching,
and what part of the tongue is doing the work. So retroflex s and
alveolopalatal s are both being fricated against the same part of the
palate (just behind the alveolar ridge), but the first is with the tongue
tip, whereas the second is with the blade so placed that the tongue tip
winds up behind the lower teeth.
> What we need in CXS is a better representation of the variations in the
> American "r." Judging from what I've heard, these sounds have been
> neglected.
They are neglected precisely because they make little or no difference
to anyone (except us phonetician-geeks). For all we know, there are
pairs of identical twins out there that have learned and use different
pronunciations of their /r/s.
--
John Cowan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
http://www.reutershealth.com http://www.ccil.org/~cowan
Yakka foob mog. Grug pubbawup zink wattoom gazork. Chumble spuzz.
-- Calvin, giving Newton's First Law "in his own words"
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Message: 8
Date: Mon, 8 Nov 2004 08:49:34 -0500
From: Yann Kiraly <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Small relay
Anybody in for a small relay? I would'nt neccessarily have to be relay
master, but I would volunteer if I was needed to. Or is there are relay in
planning somewhere?
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Message: 9
Date: Mon, 8 Nov 2004 08:54:15 -0500
From: John Cowan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Spelling pronunciations (was: rhotic miscellany)
Ray Brown scripsit:
> again /@'gejn/ or /@'gEn/ (so also with _against_)
> ate /ejt/ or /Et/
I have only /@gEn(st)/ and /ejt/. /@gejn(st)/ seems British to me, and
/Et/ comes across as an archaic vulgarism, the sort of thing my father
(1904-1993) said when he was being funny.
> Of course there's the well known _ain't_ /Ent/ (which I was certainly
> familiar with) that JRRT puns with _Ent_ in LotR.
I never even heard of this, nor realized the presence of a pun, until
you told us about it; for me "ain't" can only be /ejn(t)/. I think
all three of these pronunciations are general among North Ams.
> We've given up wearing doublets long ago :)
Yes, which is why I said that waistcoats (not meaning vests) were archaic
in my understanding, not knowing that Rightpondians use the word in a
different sense.
> I've been talking all the time about 'British waistcoats', which you
> LeftPondians quaintly call 'vests'.
By "quaintly" do you imply that "British waistcoats" were once called
"vests" there as well, as trousers were once (and still by us) called
"pants"?
(The sentence "Johnny went to the bathroom in his pants" is a touchstone
for the understanding of American English, depending as it does on
the North American meanings of "bathroom" and "pants", and the highly
specific idiom "go to the bathroom in one's [nether garments]", which
does *not* entail the presence of a bathroom in either the British or
the American sense.
> Over here, as I guess you know, 'vest' always means
> what you call an 'undervest'
Recte "undershirt". Now undershirts come in two varieties, those which
are essentially T-shirts (but with short enough sleeves that they are
not visible even under short-sleeved shirts), and those which have mere
straps running over the shoulders, in current slang called "wife-beaters"
for reasons too disgusting to go into.
I would conjecture that by "vest" you Rightpondians mean primarily the
latter type, and only secondarily (if at all) the former type? I can
see the comparison between the latter type and actual waistcoats/vests,
but it seems to me the essence of a waistcoat/vest is its sleevelessness,
whereas T-shirts most definitely do have sleeves. (I hope this is clear.)
> >I've also heard a Frenchified [-wAz] in British English.
>
> Ach!!!! How pretentious & ignorant can a person get?!
Well, to be fair, some who use it are probably p. & i., and others just i.
> I think the second syllable got changed through the influence of
> _porpoise_.
So it seems, yes.
> The French for _tortoise_ is in fact _tortue_ <-- late Latin _tortu:ca_
This "tortuca" itself has an interesting etymology; it's from _tartarucha_
'of Tartarus (fem.)' < Greek, distorted (:-) by _tortus_ 'twisted',
referring to the animal's feet.
--
John Cowan [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.reutershealth.com www.ccil.org/~cowan
Original line from The Warrior's Apprentice by Lois McMaster Bujold:
"Only on Barrayar would pulling a loaded needler start a stampede toward one."
English-to-Russian-to-English mangling thereof: "Only on Barrayar you risk to
lose support instead of finding it when you threat with the charged weapon."
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Message: 10
Date: Mon, 8 Nov 2004 06:57:25 -0700
From: Muke Tever <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: /k/ in i.t.a.
On Mon, 8 Nov 2004 13:09:55 +0100, Jean-François Colson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
wrote:
> Hi all
>
> I see that in Pitman Initial Teaching Alphabet, which is a phonemic
> alphabet, different characters
> are used for the c of cat and the k of key.
> Is there any difference between those characters?
> If not, how are they used?
It is likely that the system is not two-way phonemic (i.e., one grapheme
per sound and one sound per grapheme) but just one-way phonemic (one sound
per letter). This is sensible for an alphabet that is used to teach people
to read. Notice also that the sound /z/ is spelled two different ways,
with a regular "z" for /z/ spelled "z" and with a reversed "z" (or, if you
like, an "s" with sharp corners) for /z/ spelled "s".
(Indeed, on the ITA webpage under "what is ITA" it says "The alphabet
adheres closely to traditional orthography. The symbols are lowercase.
Certain conventional English spellings have been retained such as the c
and k, which have the same sound.)
*Muke!
--
website: http://frath.net/
LiveJournal: http://kohath.livejournal.com/
deviantArt: http://kohath.deviantart.com/
FrathWiki, a conlang and conculture wiki:
http://wiki.frath.net/
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Message: 11
Date: Mon, 8 Nov 2004 09:06:32 -0500
From: Sally Caves <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Need some help with terms: was "rhotic miscellany"
----- Original Message -----
From: "Ray Brown" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Monday, November 08, 2004 2:20 AM
Subject: Re: Need some help with terms: was "rhotic miscellany"
> On Sunday, November 7, 2004, at 02:59 , Sally Caves wrote:
>
> [snip]
>> I just can't duplicate what John is describing and still pronounce "car"
>> the
>> way I do it.
>
> OOOOPS!!!!
>
> Looks like some of us have been writing at cross purposes - probably not
> for the first time in this thread :)
>
> I cannot answer for John, but I've been assuming that Sally was talking
> about the |r| in |rack|, not the |r| in |car|. While I have an alveolar
> approximant for the first, I have no consonant at all for the second!
Well naturally! You're English! :) I was actually talking about all |r|s
as I pronounce them, and as many do in America, but it seems that the way I
put it, yesterday, only final |r| got discussed. For me, there is tongue
curling in all of them, but to different degrees. I made a list of |r|s
below as I pronounce them:
Initial:
road apical flexion towards the hard palate, simultaneous rounding of
lips.
rudder same
raid same, with less rounding of lips.
reed same, with even less rounding of lips. Tongue in all cases still in
apical flexion or retroflex approximant.
Final:
CAR
tongue dropped and pulled back, apical flexion towards the hard palate
but not so close to the palate as in "road."
FAIR
tongue not so dropped, but apical flexion towards the hard palate. It's
a diphthong.
EAR
tongue raised to accommodate front vowel, but dropped suddenly to cause
retroflexion. Definitely a diphthing. Imagine German hier, but the -er is
drawn back suddenly. The Terminator does it too slowly.
AQUIRE
same thing, only more movement of the tongue back and the tip curled
towards palate.
Intervocalic:
AMERICAN
same thing as with "fair." Only the ghost of an /I/.
VERY
same thing. Tongue moves forward and the back and sides of the tongue
move up to give slightly more /i/ sound.
SORRY
same thing as with "car."
TEARY
same thing as with "ear."
FURRY
one of my favorite words. The first syllable is already poised as a
retroflex. In North Philadelphia, I've heard this pronounced /'f^r\'i/. A
solid "uh" sound
for the "u"; same with 'hurry, ferry, and Merry Christmas." "Ah ya
gonna take the fuh-ry, Waltuh?" (my old boyfriend's sister). "Walter"
pronounced as
you would hear it in Brooklyn.
Pre-consonantal
PARK
As in "far"; the final velar stop doesn't move the tongue.
HARVARD YARD
A common phrase used to mimic a certain Boston accent. For me, the "v"
does little to bring the tongue forward. Stubborn retroflex r.
FARED
The |r| is brought forward slightly because of the front vowel and the
alveolar final stop.
FEARED
Same.
GIRLY MAN.
One of our favorite phrases, these days. Always pronounced as Arnold
would pronounce it. Tongue pulled back severely, no retroflexion. Me:
same as
with "furry," and |l| pronounced at post alveolar position instead of
further forward.
Post-consonantal
PROSE.
By the time I've closed my lips for the |p| I've already got the tongue
in curled position pointing up at the hard palate.
TREE
Not quite the same. The alveolar stop requires a scrape of the tip of
the tongue back to cause retroflexion. If I compare it with "tip," the "t"
in that word
is articulated much further forward.
CRAM
Lots of rounding of the lips, with simultaneous curling of the tongue
upwards.
Final post-consonantal
BUTTER
This is a flap, where the tongue touches the post alveolar point for |t|
and swipes back. No vowel sound between t and r.
STAMMER
Not a flap, because of the labial, but the lips push out a bit as the
tongue curls back into a retroflex position, pointing, as ever, at the
palate.
LEADER
pronounced almost exactly as "butter," except the "d" is further forward
on the alveolar ridge. BTW, it sounds exactly as I would pronounce "litre."
UPPER
Rather like "stammer."
> As I think it is well known, in the urban speech of south east England &
> in RP there is no rhotic consonant in syllable coda.
Yes. The most commonly mimicked feature of British English. What we Murkin
kids did when we were faking British English, along with exaggerated /A/
sounds for "can't" and "dance" (all without any nuance).
I pronounce |car| as
> [k_hA:]. On some words we use centering diphthongs, e.g. |here| [EMAIL
> PROTECTED]
Yes... all badly faked when I was eleven years old. "I say, old chop, I
KANT STOND it, heah."
> Now many rural dialects do use r-colored vowels or diphthongs here and,
> indeed, in certain circumstance I occasionally use them also. These
> _vowels_ are, as I have written earlier in the thread, termed 'retroflex'
> by some people because the r-coloring is given tongue movement similar to
> retroflexion. It does of course describe the _manner_ in which these
> vowels are pronounced.
Great! What I thought!
> But as Marcos has written, and I agreed with him, this usage is confusing
> as it is *not* the same usage as IPA point of articulation of consonants.
> IPA charts name he feature denoted by the diacritic which CXS represents
> thus [`] (my mailer doesn't seem to like the actual IPA symbol) as
> 'rhotocity'.
Right. I suggested that we revise the CXS a bit. But it looks as though
there is already a graph for it.
> I suspect this is where the confusion has come into this thread. We have
> not all been writing about the same thing or using the term 'retroflex' in
> the same way.
This was decided yesterday, too. Me, grousing about the term "retroflex" as
a Place of Articulation and insulting Marcos; long bouts of humorous
apologies back and forth. :)
> Now, back to |car|. The rhotic dialects of south England & the midlands
> have [k_hA`], that is [A] pronounced with retroflexion of the tongue, i.e.
> r-colored or rhoticized. But there's no consonant. It's rather like the
> nasal consonants in, say, French where a final nasal consonant ha been
> dropped leaving the vowel pronounced with nasalization. Similarly, in the
> rhotic dialects I am familiar with, the final /r/ has disappeared as a
> consonant, leaving only a rhoticized vowel.
>
> I've assumed - probably because the effect is similar and I have been
> _hearing_ a sound I'm familiar with & not _listening_ carefully - that the
> same was true of the American r-colored vowels. Indeed, because I
> understood similar vowels occurred in modern standard Chinese as well as
> in Merkan English & some Brit varieties, I had once considrred using |r|
> as a vowel in BrSc - but was dissuaded after disussion on this list.
> But as I cannot hear Sally speak,
I toyed with the madcap idea of making a huge soundbyte of my |r|s, |r|s as
I've heard them in Bucks County north Philly, as I've heard them in England
and Wales, and as our honorable California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger
pronounces them. :) I'm clearly trying to escape from reading
dissertations.
I can make no judgment and it may well
> be that she and many other Merkans do have a separate _consonant_ here,
> namely the retroflex approximant. Certainly some Scots speakers seem to
> make a separate aprroximant consonant in such positions (other Scots have
> trilled /r/ here, as do Welsh speakers).
I so miss it! :(
> If Sally does indeed have the retroflex approximant here, then CXS
> certainly has a symbol for it, albeit a compound symbol, namely [r\`].
Oh, okay. That's a good one. But as John and Charlie have noted, they
don't include retroflexion in their FINAL |r|; I have yet to hear back from
them, but I wonder if they detect an apical retroflexion in any of the other
combinations I've given above, especially initial |r|. I said I found it
hard to imitate the final |r|s they described without it sounding like a
British |r|, but I was finally able to approximate something like what John
described. I think that |r| in America is either relaxed or tense in
varying degrees all over the States, and these variations also need some
kind of IPA graph.
> Do those speakers who have [r\`] in syllable coda, use the same
> approximant in onset position? In other words, do Merkans generally
> pronounce /r/ in |car| the same as the /r/ in |rack|?
I think the final |r| is slightly more relaxed in "car" than the initial |r|
in "rack." The surrounding vowels and consonants affect it. See above.
Sally
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Message: 12
Date: Mon, 8 Nov 2004 14:28:58 +0000
From: Jan van Steenbergen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Small relay
--- Yann Kiraly skrzypszy:
> Anybody in for a small relay?
No. But I'm always in for a big relay! :)))
> Or is there are relay in planning somewhere?
Several participants in the last relay expressed an interest in
organisation the next relay (Sally, Irina, David). But, as far as I
recall, all with a longer interval between the relays in mind.
Jan
=====
"If you think you are too small to make a difference, try sleeping in a closed
room with a mosquito."
http://steen.free.fr/
___________________________________________________________ALL-NEW Yahoo!
Messenger - all new features - even more fun! http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com
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Message: 13
Date: Mon, 8 Nov 2004 09:40:53 -0500
From: "J. 'Mach' Wust" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: CXS changes
On Mon, 8 Nov 2004 12:44:40 +1100, Tristan Mc Leay
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>However: For those people who care:
>
> - If there is an essentially unanamous decision to swap <J\> and
> <j\>, I will do it.
> - If however anyone provides a reasonable argument against it, I
> would prefer considerable use (by posts, not by people). I will
> ignore any arguments like 'I would prefer we changed <!> into
> <~>'; to me that means you don't care about the issue at hand (try
> and get others to your cause). Of course I've been offlist for a
> while so I don't know what the current situation is but when I get
> back to having a bit of time, I'll look into it...
> - If anyone can think of a replacement symbol for one of them, and
> then have <J\> and <j\> as synonyms, that's my preferred choice in
> my role as maintainer of CXS. This would probably be the same idea
> as how <t_s> and <ts)> are synonyms, but no-one ever uses <t_s>
> anymore and I might as well remove it from my chart now that <ts)>
> has been so successful. (Unless I've forgotten anyone?)
>
>Email me, either onlist or privately at [EMAIL PROTECTED],
>with your opinion if you have one. So far I assume that Jan, Yitzik and
>Philip Newton are all in favor of the swap, and that J. 'Mach' Wust
>isn't for it---but can I point out that although CXS is based on X-Sampa
>which is based on the IPA, CXS is motivated more by
>ease-of-use-and-memorisation, independent of the IPA. Does that affect
>your objection, Mach?
I understand it as a way of using IPA without having the IPA signs
available. I assume that all the people who use CXS know IPA previously.
If you don't feel obliged to follow (X-)Sampa, then you could also get rid
of the strange use of |J| for a nasal sound and use |n\| instead. I believe
the only reason for that peculiar use of |J| is that by the time it was
introduced, there wasn't any general modifier sign yet as we now have with
|\|. Another instance of such an unintuitive assignment is |H| for a sound
that isn't related at all to an aspiration. I'd also count the numbers as
samples of extremely unintuitive assignments.
I'd say before we get rid of assymetries, we should get rid of the very
unintuitive assignments of the above type. Anyway, there's not a great deal
of symmetry in the system, since the |\| can have any meaning.
And your argument that swapping around two sounds so close to each other
like [J\] and [j\] would create confusion is also very important, I think.
For the biggest part, however, CXS work very well.
[EMAIL PROTECTED]:
j. 'mach' wust
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Message: 14
Date: Mon, 8 Nov 2004 09:45:08 -0500
From: "Mark J. Reed" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Need some help with terms: was "rhotic miscellany"
On Mon, Nov 08, 2004 at 09:06:32AM -0500, Sally Caves wrote:
> >OOOOPS!!!!
> >
> >Looks like some of us have been writing at cross purposes - probably not
> >for the first time in this thread :)
> >
> >I cannot answer for John, but I've been assuming that Sally was talking
> >about the |r| in |rack|, not the |r| in |car|.
As an American, what I was talking about was both of them. :)
For me, the difference between initial and final /r/ seems to be the
same as that between initial and final /j/ and /w/: /ja/ (German for "yes")
vs /aj/ (one of those things you see out of); /w&/ (crying baby)
vs /&w/ (more adult expression of pain).
That is, the representations /aj/ and /&w/ are shorthand for something
that's more like /ai_^/ and /&u_^/ (or /aI_^/ and /&U_^/, etc). The
final bit is really a vowel, not a consonant, and I think that's the
same in my pronunciation of "car": it ends in a non-syllabic but vocalic
r. I can extend the sound indefinitely and say "carrrrrrrrrrr"; and
unlike you non-rhotics' pronunciation, the final sound is the same
regardless of the vowel: bearrrrrrrrrrrrr, beerrrrrrrr,
boarrrrrrrrrrrrrr, brewerrrrrrrrrrr, etc.
-Marcos
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Message: 15
Date: Mon, 8 Nov 2004 09:57:06 -0500
From: Sally Caves <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Need some help with terms: was "rhotic miscellany"
----- Original Message -----
From: "John Cowan" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Sally Caves scripsit:
>
>> I just can't duplicate what John is describing and still pronounce "car"
>> the way I do it. So there's no curling up of your tongue tip towards
>> the roof of your mouth? It stays behind your lower teeth? Is there any
>> curling at all, John? When I try to duplicate that, without the curl,
>> I get not only a sound that changes the quality of my "a," but an "r"
>> that sounds like "caw" with "r-coloring," If I curl it, with the tongue
>> still behind the lower teeth, I get a deeper sounding r, but in order
>> to make it sound right, it still points up at the roof of my mouth.
>
> On further investigation, my /r/ (both initial and coda) is a velar
> approximant, with the tongue-behind-lower-teeth a secondary gesture.
> Or perhaps it is not a gesture at all, but just the physical consequence
> of keeping the front of my tongue slack.
Hmmm. I see. The "r" sound is made by raising the back of your tongue to
produce sonority in the velar region. I can do it, now. It sounds a lot
like my "r," but it feels utterly foreign in my mouth. And I can only do it
with the coda. Does Charlie do it this way? I'd actually need to see and
hear you do it.
>> You and I have met at Tim's house (that was a wonderful party!).
>> I don't think I noticed that your "r" was different from mine.
>> Maybe these distinctions are so subtle that it's hard for others to
>> hear it when they aren't listening for it.
>
> Mindful of this, I taught myself to say "car" and "rack" with my own /r/,
> with an alveolar approximant, and with a retroflex approximant. I tested
> these as minimal pairs and as the full triplet on two native speakers of
> American English, one rhotic and one partly non-rhotic (typical speakers
> of NYC English have both rhotic and non-rhotic varieties at command,
> and use more rhotics as the register rises). Nobody could hear any of
> the differences.
Okay, that explains a lot. When did you teach this method to yourself? At
a young age? Were you aware of what you were doing? (this sounds as though
it was a self-conscious experiment.) Did you start out with an ordinary
retroflex r and change it?
> So I suspect that children learn their American /r/s whichever way,
> and suppose that everyone else pronounces it just the way they do,
> but if all our mouths had fingers in them, we'd find a wide variety of
> different styles of pronunciation.
I think you are utterly right. And not just with "r." With "s," as you note
below. And Sean Connery has the most distinctive [S] sound, pulled back as
to be almost retroflex or palatal.
>> I guess I'm frustrated that I don't completely grasp where these areas
>> in my mouth are: "post alveolar, alveolar palatal, and retroflex region.
>> I have been entrenched in thinking that retroflex means the curling
>> of the tongue UP.
>
> The trouble is that the classical POA terms are capturing two separate
> facts simultaneously: where the tongue is touching or almost touching,
> and what part of the tongue is doing the work.
Right.
> So retroflex s and
> alveolopalatal s are both being fricated against the same part of the
> palate (just behind the alveolar ridge), but the first is with the tongue
> tip, whereas the second is with the blade so placed that the tongue tip
> winds up behind the lower teeth.
These sound different to me. They have pitches, when I make them, and the
retroflex s gives almost a whole lower note, like a chickadee calling. The
retroflex
seems to pull the tongue back on the alveola.
>> What we need in CXS is a better representation of the variations in the
>> American "r." Judging from what I've heard, these sounds have been
>> neglected.
>
> They are neglected precisely because they make little or no difference
> to anyone (except us phonetician-geeks). For all we know, there are
> pairs of identical twins out there that have learned and use different
> pronunciations of their /r/s.
Exactly.
Sally
> John Cowan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> http://www.reutershealth.com http://www.ccil.org/~cowan
> Yakka foob mog. Grug pubbawup zink wattoom gazork. Chumble spuzz.
> -- Calvin, giving Newton's First Law "in his own words"
Great quote.
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Message: 16
Date: Mon, 8 Nov 2004 15:10:59 -0000
From: caeruleancentaur <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: back to "rhotic miscellany"
--- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], Sally Caves <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
----- Original Message -----
>>Yes it is! If you don't mind my asking, I wonder where you're from
>>in the States (are you from the States?).
I was born in CA a year before WWII. My father (may he rest in
peace) was a sailor and a Pearl Harbor survivor. I began to speak in
the home of my maternal grandparents where we lived during the war.
Neither of them spoke the German or Sicilian of their ancestors. I
can not remember ever noticing an accent in my family. Mom grew up
in Dover, NJ; Dad in Jersey City. We lived in several states before
settling down in VA. I have lived in VA since '48, but by that time
my speech patterns had been established. I have always thought of
myself as having no accent, at least none that marks me as from a
particular region of America. Who knows what Prof. Higgins might
discern! I believe that's known as a midwestern accent, the one that
broadcasters try to emulate. At least that's what my brother, the
DJ, told me.
Charlie
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Message: 17
Date: Mon, 8 Nov 2004 10:49:18 -0500
From: John Cowan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Need some help with terms: was "rhotic miscellany"
Sally Caves scripsit:
> >Mindful of this, I taught myself to say "car" and "rack" with my own /r/,
> >with an alveolar approximant, and with a retroflex approximant. I tested
> >these as minimal pairs and as the full triplet on two native speakers of
> >American English, one rhotic and one partly non-rhotic (typical speakers
> >of NYC English have both rhotic and non-rhotic varieties at command,
> >and use more rhotics as the register rises). Nobody could hear any of
> >the differences.
>
> Okay, that explains a lot. When did you teach this method to yourself?
Yesterday.
> Were you aware of what you were doing? (this sounds as though it was
> a self-conscious experiment.)
It was. Man "experiments" on wife and daughter! Film at 11.
> Did you start out with an ordinary retroflex r and change it?
I don't think so. I'm not sure when I first noticed that my /r/ was
not retroflex; it's only in the course of this discussion that I
learned to characterize my /r/ accurately, and it was only yesterday
that I ran my little test.
> [Retroflex and alveopalatal s] sound different to me. They have
> pitches, when I make them, and the retroflex s gives almost a whole
> lower note, like a chickadee calling. The retroflex seems to pull the
> tongue back on the alveola.
Yes, they do sound different, unlike the various American /r/s. I was
simply making the point that "place of articulation" refers to tongue
position *and* position along the labial-to-uvular continuum at the
same time.
--
Long-short-short, long-short-short / Dactyls in dimeter,
Verse form with choriambs / (Masculine rhyme): [EMAIL PROTECTED]
One sentence (two stanzas) / Hexasyllabically http://www.reutershealth.com
Challenges poets who / Don't have the time. --robison who's at texas dot net
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Message: 18
Date: Mon, 8 Nov 2004 16:55:11 +0100
From: Henrik Theiling <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Advanced English + Babel text
Hi!
"J. 'Mach' Wust" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
>...
> There is no single uniform pronunciation of standard German, and the
> pronunciations vary in the realization of /r/. As I've already written, many
> varieties have [R] for the "rhotic" /r/, but other varieties have [R\] or
> [r].
>...
Right. And there are region that have [r\] (voiced alveolar
approximant, (not the retroflex one)). Sounds strange to my ear, but
those people I met were still speaking Standard High German. :-)
I'd say most say [R], next comes [r], then [R\], then [r\]. But that
is vague personal intuition, not statistics.
I wouldn't say [R\] is older generation, just a different variant
(even my grandma says [R]).
BTW, for me, [R\] is toughest to pronounce, the others work well.
**Henrik
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Message: 19
Date: Mon, 8 Nov 2004 18:13:41 +0200
From: Rodlox <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Small relay
----- Original Message -----
From: "Yann Kiraly" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Monday, November 08, 2004 3:49 PM
Subject: Small relay
> Anybody in for a small relay?
I'm game for one.
(and yes, I learned my lesson from Metes -- C-14 actually has a sentance
structure).
-Rodlox.
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Message: 20
Date: Mon, 8 Nov 2004 17:30:58 +0100
From: Carsten Becker <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: ANADEWISM: Natlangs that do comparison with true verbs?
Hey!
*nods head*. Thank you. So you *can* do that with verbs in
not-so-foreign natlangs, too, I see. I must think about how
to do that in German. I guess it's like in Dutch. So let's
see:
Der Mensch gleicht dem Wolf in seiner Wildheit.
Man equals the wolf in his ferocity.
Der Wolf Ãbertrifft den Menschen in seiner Wildheit.
The wolf surpasses man in his ferocity.
Der Mensch unterliegt dem Wolf in seiner Wildheit.
Man is inferior to the wolf in his ferocity.
RenÃ: Maybe it would have been better to choose "as for"
instead of the second "is". Maybe it would have been
better, too, to say "was seine Wildheit betrifft" (what
concerns his ferocity) instead of "in seiner Wildheit".
The problem was that when I tried to translate, or at least
tried to do the interlinear for the story of the Northwind
and the Sun (also a standard example as it seems to me), I
had difficulties translating "Aber je mehr er blies, desto
fester hÃllte sich der Wanderer in seinen Mantel ein" --
"But the more he blew, the more tightly the traveller
wrapped himself into his cloak", or so. I haven't had the
English version available offhand, only the first two
sentences of it. Ayeri is not capable of handling two
"true" verbs ("Vollverben", as opposed to copulae), it can
only handle one copula and one verb per clause. Subclauses
can have own verbs of course, too. I shot myself into the
foot by taking the German version, because G does not care
about marking adjectives and adverbs as English or French
do (-ly, -ement). So finally, I translated "je krÃftiger er
blies" -- and saw after a while that actually,
"krÃftig" (powerful) and "fest" (here: tight) are actually
adverbs, which can be compared more simply: Adding the stem
of the comparison verb as an ending to the adverb, which
gives us
"nu-micyo-ican-eng" (AGT.strong-very.to=be=more=...=than)
and "nu-TIGHT-eng" (AGT.tight.to=be=more=...=than). In the
environment: "... nÃrya ti ang maBLOWiyÃin numicyoicaneng,
to asanoang ea maWRAPiyà nuTIGHTeng cong tova iyÃin."
I haven't made up words for "to blow", "to wrap sth/s.o.
into sth" and "tight" yet.
BTW, by the end of next month, it'll be one year that I'm
working on Ayeri! And as I noticed when doing the
interlinear of the "Northwind and the Sun", there are still
revisions to be made and things to be covered in the
grammar. My further plans are first to update the German
translation (the PDF file) and then to rewrite the English
version (the HTML file). The grammar is quite complete up
to now, but still without stylistic registers and stuff.
Making a raw translation of some examples should actually
only be a matter of coining words. The two alphabets will
be included into the PDF file, too. While doing this all, I
must urgently make up words for my naming language,
Ambrian, set up more intelligent sound changes, puzzle
names together and finally let them run through the sound
changes. I have also thought about looking up the PIE roots
of the list of most common words for names by Jeffrey
Henning and let the roots run through five or so different
phonologies to create a bit more variety. Because there's
no justification for PIE roots in my conworld, I'm afraid I
have to say that these names are too old to be
reconstructed :P Or maybe I could have my own
reconstructions?.
Have a nice day,
Carsten
--
Eri silvevÃng aibannama padangin.
Nivaie evaenain eri ming silvoievÃng caparei.
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Message: 21
Date: Mon, 8 Nov 2004 16:33:42 +0000
From: Joe <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Spelling pronunciations (was: rhotic miscellany)
John Cowan wrote:
>
>
>
>>Of course there's the well known _ain't_ /Ent/ (which I was certainly
>>familiar with) that JRRT puns with _Ent_ in LotR.
>>
>>
>
>I never even heard of this, nor realized the presence of a pun, until
>you told us about it; for me "ain't" can only be /ejn(t)/. I think
>all three of these pronunciations are general among North Ams.
>
>
Oh, I'd say it's by far the most common pronunciation in Britain. If I
use the word 'ain't', it's always [En?].
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Message: 22
Date: Mon, 8 Nov 2004 17:39:16 +0100
From: Andreas Johansson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: back to "rhotic miscellany"
Quoting caeruleancentaur <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
> --- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], Sally Caves <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> ----- Original Message -----
>
> >>Yes it is! If you don't mind my asking, I wonder where you're from
> >>in the States (are you from the States?).
>
> I was born in CA a year before WWII.
Does that mean 1938 or 1940? Or even 1936?
Andreas
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Message: 23
Date: Mon, 8 Nov 2004 11:37:57 -0500
From: Carsten Becker <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: ANADEWISM: Natlangs that do comparison with true verbs?
For some reason the message I've just posted is not shown ... I hope
Thunderbird sent it!
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Message: 24
Date: Mon, 8 Nov 2004 11:44:19 -0500
From: Yann Kiraly <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Small relay
Great! As I'm happy with the present state of my minimalist conlang
manaki (small words :)), except for vocabulary of course, I'd be ready any
time. So, if , say, 8 more people reply to this thread, we could get
started.
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Message: 25
Date: Mon, 8 Nov 2004 17:58:35 +0100
From: Andreas Johansson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: CXS changes
Quoting "J. 'Mach' Wust" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
> If you don't feel obliged to follow (X-)Sampa, then you could also get rid
> of the strange use of |J| for a nasal sound and use |n\| instead. I believe
> the only reason for that peculiar use of |J| is that by the time it was
> introduced, there wasn't any general modifier sign yet as we now have with
> |\|.
Personally, I think it would be nice to retain a monograph for this fairly
common phone, and that the palatal conotations of |J| makes it fairly fitting.
Obviously, [n\] might be used as an alternative.
> Another instance of such an unintuitive assignment is |H| for a sound
> that isn't related at all to an aspiration.
Since the IPA uses an up-side-down 'h', I don't think that one's too bad.
> I'd also count the numbers as
> samples of extremely unintuitive assignments.
They once were. By now, [2] and [9] are at least as ingrained in my brain as the
proper IPA signs will ever become.
While we're discussing changes, I might mention moving [P] to the bilabial
fricative (currently [p\]); not only would this make for a monograph for
another tolerably common sound which also increases symmetry with [p b B], the
present use of [P] is for a labiodental approximant, which is, at least on this
list, much less commonly mentioned than the bilabial fric, and which already has
an alternative notation - [v\] - in X-SAMPA, which on top of it better suggests
labiodentality.
Andreas
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