Re: Q about /c/

On Sat, Jan 24, 2004 at 07:08:20PM -0500, Trebor Jung wrote:
>    Merhaba!
>
>    Is the phoneme /c/ (palatal stop) that 'hard /j/-sound' that I've heard is
>    found in Latin American (Castilian?) Spanish, spelled as <ll>?
No way.

Over the Spanish-speaking world, Spanish <y> and <ll> vary (sometimes
together, sometimes not) from [j] (<y> in English <yes>) through [Z]
(<s> in English <measure>) or [j\] (palatal equivalent of [Z]) to [dZ)]
(<j> in English <job>) or [J\j\)] (palatal equivalent of [dZ)]).  In some
dialects <ll> is actually a palatized l [l_j].  But in any case those
sounds are always either an approximant or a fricative or an affricate,
never a stop.

The sound [c] is a stop; it sounds a lot like a [t], but instead of the
tip of the tongue tapping behind the front teeth, the flat of the tongue
taps against the roof of the mouth.

-Mark