Re: retroflex consonants

At 14:23 27.1.2003 +0100, Daniel Andreasson Vpc-Work wrote:

>I'm sure BPJ can expand further on Swedish retroflexes. How the
>Swedish retroflexes are actually more palatoalveolar, etc.
Yes but I won't, since I posted on the subject just a while back.  Just
search on "bpj@melroch.net" and "retroflex" in the archive!

At 20:58 27.1.2003 -0800, Joseph Fatula wrote:
> > > American English (r)
>
>Is this sound actually retroflex?
Not for all speakers.  Irish English has a sure retroflex {r} though.

At 14:46 28.1.2003 +0000, Jan van Steenbergen wrote:
> >
> > [...] Polish (sz, z.) [...]
>
>I have been under that assumption too, but then I was told by a native speaker
>that Polish _sz_ and _z._ are alveolars and not retroflexes.
>Czech, OTOH, is supposed to have retroflexes, I think.
Polish has retroflexes where Czech and SCB have alveolars.  This is in
order to maximize the distinction towards the alveopalatal {s' z'}.

At 16:55 28.1.2003 -0500, Shreyas Sampat wrote:

>Incidentally, in the dialect of Hindi that I'm being taught, the
>"retroflexes" aren't the tongue-curled-back kind where the underside of
>the tongue touches the roof of the mouth;
That's the variety Swedish dialectologists call "cacuminal"

>  they're more like subtly
>backed alveolars.
And that's the variety they call "postalveolar"

Actually "retroflex" is a tongue (articulator) gesture that can be used at
different POAs.  The Indic phoneticians ignored this distinction, which
wasn't phonemic for them, while early western phoneticians (except Swedish
dialectologists :) were unaware of it.  IPA chooses to act unaware...

See Daniel, this subject always gets me going! :-)



/ B.Philip Jonsson B^)>
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