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

>The definition I gave earlier for rhotics (lowered third formant) is
>the one favored by Ladefoged. However, another study (Lindau 1985)
>muddies the waters considerably. She lists the following sounds as
>rhotics (not an exhaustive list):
>
>[4]    tap/flap
>[r]    apical trill
>[r_0]  voiceless apical trill
>[r\]   approximant
>[R\]   uvular trill (IPA small cap "R")
>[R]    voiced uvular fricative (IPA inverted small cap "R")
>[X]    voiceless uvular fricative
Neither [r\], [R] nor [X] have to be rhotic by necessity.
In fact, I frequently hear [X] as an allophone of Spanish
"j", but seldom I hear it rhotic (sometimes, yes, I have
actually heard the rhotic sound [X`], usually when a "j"
is pronounced too emphatically and comes out as what I
would rather spell "jr" or "jjj"). As for non-rhotic [r\],
listen to the following recording of the Edo word "arábá":

http://hctv.humnet.ucla.edu/departments/linguistics/VowelsandConsonants/app
endix/languages/edo/edo.html

Even though the page is headed "Rhotics", _that_
particular recording of the sound [r\] is not rhotic.
To me, it sounds between "ayaba" and "a(a)aba", with
no r-like or r-coloured sound. I ignore whether actual
rhotic pronunciations for that sound are possible as
allophonic variation in that language, but given the
context where that recording is offered, I assume that
whether /r\/ is actually pronounced rhotic or non-rhotic
is phonemically irrelevant and that the sound is usually
pronounced tap-like (that is, actually rhotic) in fluent
speech but was held for too long to sound that way when
it was being recorded. OTOH, in the recording of the
following word "ará" which illustrates the fricative
phoneme, I detect mild rhoticity, and in the recording
of the last word "àrà" I find rhoticity is self-evident.

Another recording that clarifies rhoticity can be
found here:

http://www.haidalanguage.org/sounds-of-haida.html

Listen to the recording of "awáa" and compare it with
the recording of "wul" or with any English "w" at that.
Can you hear the difference? The pronunciation of "awaa"
in that recording displays a very evident rhotic "w"
[w`] (the preglottalized "'w" recorded in "'wáadaa náay"
sounds rhotic too), while no rhoticity appears in the
recording of "wul" (nor in any English "w" I've ever
heard). Given that AFAIK the w's in "awáa" and "wul"
represent the same phoneme, I assume that both rhotic
and non-rhotic w's are usual allophones of Haida /w/.

I remember that hearing rhoticity in "awáa" struck me
vividly the first time I heard those recordings of
Haida because that was the first time I heard a rhotic w
and at first I thought 'Hey, wasn't it French "arroi"
what I've just heard? Why is there no r in the spelling
"awáa"?'.

At the bottom of the same page, listen to the recording
of "k'aláax^an". Do you hear anything there that you
would ever label "r-like" or "r-coloured"? I definitely
don't. But they are pronouncing a [X] there (spelled "x^"),
which according to Mrs. Lindau is supposed to be a rhotic.
So, there you are an audible proof that, as I mentioned
above, an uvular fricative is not a rhotic sound per se.
Although it _can_ be rhoticized into [X`], like what I
sometimes hear in emphatically pronounced Spanish j's.
BTW, I can record a sample of this sound for you all,
if you like, so that you can hear both the rhotic [X`]
and the non-rhotic [X] side by side to compare and be
finally convinced beyond doubt.

Now, if by attentively and repeatedly hearing and
comparing those recordings, you still sincerely can't
tell which given sounds are rhotic and which ones aren't,
then nothing I can tell you will make you realize of it.

For me, rhoticity is an in-your-face evident thing when
I hear it. I find it takes me no effort to detect when
it's there and when it's not there in any given sound,
it simply "jumps at my ears", so to speak, but maybe
that's because my ears are already fine-tuned to detect
that feature because my native tongue makes a clear-cut
phonemic distinction between rhotic alveolars and
non-rhotic alveolars and, between the rhotic ones,
a further phonemic distinction is made between single-
and multiple-pulse kinds (the multiple-pulse one being
also "the rhotic par excellence"), so fortunately I'm
provided with a very clear mental image of rhoticity.

Cheers,
Javier

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