Re: What _is_ rhoticity? (wa laterals (was: Pharingials etc))

Quoting Javier BF <uaxuctum@...>:

> >Try as I might, I can't hear anything r-like about the 'w' in "awáa". Not
> that
> >I feel any very great confidence that your "rhotic" is coterminus with my
> idea
> >of "r-like".
>
> If one compares several different sounds that are definitely
> r-like beyond doubt (Spanish tap and trill, English r, German
> r, Italian r, Arabic r, Russian r, English rhotic vowels...),
> it's not that difficult to extrapolate the common 'feeling'
> in those sounds which makes them similar, and I don't think
> that 'feeling' of rhoticity is extrapolated differently by
> different people if everybody agrees that those sounds have
> something in common which do not have in common with sounds
> classified as non-rhotics. The sensation of "pulsiness" and
> "trembling sound" I get when hearing that recording of "awáa"
> is not just similar to or reminiscent of, it is the exact
> same one I hear in any of those beyond-doubt rhotics and
> one I never get when hearing beyond-doubt non-rhotic sounds
> like [d], [t], [l], [w], etc.
I think this settles it. According to how my brain hears things, [B\] is
definitively a "trembling sound", but just as definitiviely not an "r-like"
sound. [z`], OTOH, isn't "trembling", but definitively "r-like" (as behoves an
allophone of /r/).

People's perception of speech sounds is biased in favour of detecting
distinctions that are phonemic in their L1, and ignoring ones that aren't. My
category of "r-like" is, presumably, gerrymandered to include the various
realizations of Swedish /r/ (which ao include [r`], [r\], [z`] and [R\], plus
the whole retroflex series realizing /r/+dental sequences).

> >There is, however, definitively some sort of velar or near-velar closure
> >involed. The word sounds like [a'gwa:] to me.
>
> It sounds exactly as if you merged w with French r to me.
And Roger hears a pure [w]. Time for a poll?

> >The 'w's in "wul" and "gawiit" sound completely normal, so to speak. No
> hint
> >of a stop.
> >
> >Your other link didn't work.
>
> Try doing a Google search for "UCLA Phonetics Lab Archive".
> Then go to "Index of sounds" > "Rhotics" > "Rhotics in Edo".
Found it. Well, the "voiced alveolar fricative" and "voiceless alveolar
approximant" sounds r-like to me, the "alveolar lateral" not - indeed, I can't
tell it apart from an English (presumably non-rhotic) light 'l'.

I cannot help wondering if there's something wrong with the recording for
the "voiced alveolar approximant" - not merely I cannot hear any consonant at
all in that position, the whole word sounds bisyllabic.


Well, we don't seem to getting any much farther. Shall we follow Ray's advice
and let the subject fall?

                                                        Andreas

PS You've repeatedly written "realize of it". It should be simply "realize it".