Re: Comparison Þrjótrunn - Icelandic - Latin

Hi!

Carsten Becker writes:
> From: "Henrik Theiling" <theiling@...>
>...
> > It is very unusual for me to switch between pre-, post-
> > and unaspirated stops, for example.
>
> They have all three?!
Yes.  But not all three in the same positions.  Initially, there is a
contrast between un- and postaspirated plosives, and medially,
plosives are either un- or preaspirated.  E.g.

   köttur   /k_h2htYr/     cat     (nom.sg.)
   götur    /k2:tYr/       streets (nom./acc.pl)

Graphemes:

initially:
   |k|      /k_h/
   |g|      /k/

medially:
   |k|, |g|     /k/     preceding vowel is long
   |gg|         /k/     preceding vowel is short
   |kk|         /hk/    preceding vowel is short

The same holds for |p|,|b| and |t|,|d|.

|k| and |g| behave differently in medial clusters, however, e.g.
|gl| = |kl|, |kl| = /hkK/.

All in all, Icelandic orthography is quite regular, but also quite
different from what you might expect.  I'd really need to add
pronunciations to the examples on my Þrjótrunn page.

(BTW, I've found different views about aspiration, too.  Björn
Kristinsson does use aspirated phonemes for medial plosives in his PhD
thesis about speech synthesis.)

> >  And palatal stops, especially in this configuration, are also not
> > easy for me.
>
> Example?
Palatal plosives are triggered by following /j/ or a following front
vowel (or what was a front vowel in earlier times, e.g. |æ| /ai)/).
You get the same contrast as above, i.e. /c/ vs. /J\/ vs. /hc/.

I forgot to mention that the unvoiced nasals are also hard for me:
/n_0 m_0 J_0 N_0/, e.g.

    banki   /pau)J_0cI/     bank (nom.sg.)
    banka   /pau)N_0ka/     bank (other sg. and acc./gen.pl.)

Or even in initial position:

    hnífur  /n_0i:vYr/      knife

**Henrik