Re: phi-theta [was: Hellenish oddities]

Fakatinál kúsal Láiman Bláun (Raymond Brown):
> Yes, of course you do.  [pt_h] would be pretty difficult IMO, holding the
> aspiration off till the second plosive.
Hunh?  I find [pt_h] quite easy, especially if it's intervocalic, while
[p_ht_h] sounds like too many aspirations.

> Er, yes.  In fact, being an anglophone and thus normally aspirating initial
> voiceless plosives, [p_ht_h] is the easy one.  It's the [pt], as in the
> colloquial French pronunciation of "p'tit" that's the awkward one!
Unless you count the ultrashort pause between the [p] and the [t],
[pt_h] is the way I'd start "potato" if I were to say it really fast,
with the tongue starting on its way to the roof of the mouth the moment
the lips open.  In Langeford's Introduction to Phonetics, he calls that
an "open transition", if I understood him correctly.

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