Re: THEORY: German final -g (was: THEORY: no more URs!)

On Sun, 26 May 2002, Raymond Brown wrote:

> At 3:39 pm -0500 25/5/02, Thomas R. Wier wrote:
> >Quoting Raymond Brown <ray.brown@...>:
> [snip]
> >> It is a darn
> >> sight easier to have a rule which says that final {d}, {b}, {g} are
> >> pronounced the same as final {t}, {p} and {k} than it would be having to
> >> learn which words ending in {d} kept the {d} when you add endings and which
> >> changed the {d} to {t}.
> >
> >But in German, final orthographic <g>s are not predictably pronouned
> >as [k]:  the suffix -ig is usually pronounced as [IC], as [+continuous].
>
> Not in southern Germany or Austria!
Also not in [lajpts@S] :)

>
> I hate having to disagree with John, but while we lived in South Wales we
> had several German students stay with us; they all came from Swabia,
> Bavaria or Austria (i.e. the south) and without exception pronounced final
> -ig /Ik/.  (They also pronounced initial {s} as [s] and not the [z] given
> text books!).
Maybe they were making an effort to speak TV-Deutsch...?

---ferko

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